


Erik Lehnsherr's Guide to Saving the Universe By Meeting Your Soul-Mate and Falling in Love in Less than 72 Hours

by madneto, Pangea



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Space, Chair Sex, Charles Is a Big Dorkface, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Chess, Dancing and Singing, Erik Has Feelings, Erik Logic Is The Best Logic, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, Good Old-Fashioned Space Fun, M/M, Protective Erik, Smitten Erik, protective Charles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-13 11:35:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 85,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5706193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madneto/pseuds/madneto, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pangea/pseuds/Pangea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Army Pilot Erik Lehnsherr is just trying to enjoy his day off when a mostly naked person crashes through the roof of his car. Even more alarming, the strange falling naked person—who goes by Charles Xavier when he's not speaking an ancient dead language—brings tidings of the apparent potential end of the world, and begs Erik to help him put a stop to it.</p><p>Well. His mother <i>has</i> been nagging at him to go out and meet new people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A super cracky, silly space AU based on the movie The Fifth Element that I somehow talked Pangea into writing with me. :33 Posts every Tuesday. Hover over the Divine language for English translations!

 

Charles looks out the window of the Oyemai starship’s cockpit and decides he’ll never get over the beautiful vast darkness of space. Each little pinprick of light he can see in the blackness represents an entire solar system, with its own planets and living organisms with languages and cultures and histories, and he can see millions of them from where he stands on the deck, his face very nearly pressed against the glass to take them all in. Right now they are flying through an Uninhabited Zone, a place whose star has been dead for millions of years.

A few hours ago they passed a planet that had once held almost ten million life forms but now is completely brown and barren. Priest Losal—who is also Captain of the ship—perhaps picking up on his unease, had explained as they rocketed by that the planet had been evacuated before the sun exploded, most of the life forms saved and moved to other terraformed planets. Charles had appreciated that. He’s never liked stories with hopeless endings, and now, as they draw closer and closer to the border of R-8230 in the Milky Way galaxy, he finds himself getting anxious.

The fate of the entire universe is a heavy weight to bear, and even though Charles has known his whole life he’s the pivotal cog in the machine of existence, that fact never seemed to matter until three days ago. But then the Dark Planet woke up and now it feels as if the past five thousands years have been nothing.

Intellectually, Charles knows he’s ready. This is what he was born to do. But as the last surviving member of his entire race, the burden is now his alone to bear, and it doesn’t help that apart from the small bits and pieces of lore that have survived the extinction of the Elemental race, he doesn’t know quite what he’s supposed to do or even, gruesomely, if he alone will be enough to defeat the darkness. Quickly, he shoves the thought away, focusing on the life around him, the glow of the planet outside, this one part of a system with a healthy star.

“Approaching R-8230, Captain,” Jorjun reports from the other end of the cockpit. As Charles swivels his chair back around to face the front viewscreen, the navigator closes out the vector map and pulls up the outer hull’s camera view of a vast orange planet rotating around lazily on her axis. If this planet and her star system lie on the edge of the Milky Way, Charles wonders how close or far they are from Earth.

“I’m not picking up any abnormal readings,” Belyan reports, tapping on her transmitter screen idly. She catches Charles’ eye and winks three of her eyes, and Charles grins back. He likes Belyan, and all her dirty jokes. She’d taught him how to play Gnashjack in her downtime, too, and Charles is fairly certain he’s seen all 496 pictures of her children she keeps saved on her workstation twice. “Looks like we’re all clear, Captain.”

“Good,” Priest Losal says, double-jointed arms folded intricately behind his back. “We’ll take the beta orbit around the planet.”

“Assimilating flight path,” Jorjun says at once, fingers skating across the vector screen. He’d tried teaching Charles how to fly the ship a few weeks back, when they’d been out in open space with nothing large nearby to potentially crash into, but Charles doesn’t have enough fingers to make the steering system work for him. “Ready on your mark.”

“Proceed,” the Priest says with a nod.

Their ship approaches the planet, allowing her gravity to suck them into orbit. As Charles understands, they’ll use the momentum garnered by falling into line with the silent giant to save a little on fuel and allow gravity to give them a boost to slingshot them out the other side of the system. Jorjun had a lot of complex equations to go along with the explanation, but Belyan had grinned and compared it to surfing on Earth.

Charles thinks he might like to try surfing, if it’s allowed.

The bulky orange mass of the nameless planet is taking up most of viewscreen, the deep blackness of space only visible at the corners as they draw closer and closer. Charles skims through the readouts scrolling along one side of his screen detailing the planet’s composition: 83.4% molecular hydrogen, 12.8% nitrogen, and only 3.8% helium for its outer atmosphere, the percentages and combinations becoming more and more intricate the closer the sensors reach to the planet’s surface. A gas giant, Charles thinks, the term sliding up to the forefront of his mind unbidden but helpfully, so probably not a large chance for life.

All at once every single sensor alert goes off at Belyan’s station, the piercing warning bells making Charles jump. Losal whips around, his slightly-open mouth the only outward sign that he’s just as surprised as the rest of them, and he hurries over to Belyan’s station, his sharp feet clacking against the metal floor, leaning over Belyan’s shoulder to stare at the screen.

“What are we seeing here?” he asks, clipped and authoritative, his many eyes flicking frantically over the data.

“Five incoming D'Khantuun infantry ships,” Belyan says. “Heavily armed, six passengers each.”

A shot lights up across the bow of the Oyemai ship, confirming what Belyan has just said. Charles feels the sudden flare of panic rise up in his companions, most of all with Belyan who is trying not to think of her kids back at home. Jorjun has no children. He is thinking of his parents and hoping they don’t have to see another one of their offspring brought home in a casket. All Losal can think of is how no Oyemai ship has any sort of defensive weapon above a standard meteor blaster. Charles’ heart sinks.

“Evasive tactics,” Losal barks, loudly enough that Jorjun can hear him over the alarm. “Where did they come from and why did we miss them?”

“They came from behind the second moon,” Belyan reports grimly, her voice tight and professional even as her thoughts start to flicker with panic. “The volcanic activity on the moon’s surface hid their ship from our heat sensors.”

“Send ahead an SOS transmission to Earth’s President,” Losal snaps, and just as Charles opens his mouth to ask if there’s anything he can do the entire ship rocks violently, all of their stats plunging to red while several alarms start to scream in dire warning.

“They’re moving to surround us,” Jorjun shouts above the noise, “we can’t hold them off!”

“Cut the alarms,” Losal orders, and a second later they’re plunged into silence, though Charles’ ears are still ringing. “Status?”

“We can’t take another hit like that, Captain.”

“Belyan?”

“Our transmission has been acknowledged,” she answers, her voice soft, and silently Charles can already hear her singing the Oyemai Song of Mourning to herself and his heart clenches. “They’re too far away to help us. There’s nothing they can do.”

One by one, they all swivel their stalk eyes around to look at him and Charles feels his blood run cold. They’re hoping for him to do something miraculous. That’s what he’s made for after all, isn’t it, to protect? But the bile rises up in the back of his throat, and he knows he can’t protect them now, not from this, not without the stones—not even with the stones could he save them. Their mission, which had only just started, is already over.

“I’m sorry,” Charles says, his voice sounding impossibly quiet after the alarms. “I can’t.”

Losal takes in Charles’ expression with a measured sort of acceptance, pausing for a moment, before he turns and makes his way back over to the captain’s chair in front of the main console. Charles watches him go, his mouth falling open, trying to find words for how sorry he is, how he’s terrified, too; how he’s certain that if they just hold out a bit longer everything will be alright, but as soon as he thinks them, the words feel hollow and he knows he can’t say them. He falls silent.

Another shot rocks the ship, and Charles has to lunge to grab onto the nearest chair to keep from flying. Jorjun is not so lucky. He shouts as he’s flung across the cockpit, crashing into the wall next to the navigator’s chair, knocking into a row of levers, and suddenly the hum of the engines is gone. The whole ship lists to the right, groaning mightily as it spins around until the front viewscreen is pointing in towards the unnamed planet’s surface. The ship rocks again from another hit to the aft, but it hardly matters: they’ve already begun to fall forward, pulled in by gravity.

Charles can hear his heart thumping in his ears like a death knell as the planet draws closer and closer. There’s a loud grinding noise from the rear of the ship, and what sounds like a fire in the hull from blast after blast of the D’Khantuun infantry, who are shooting even as their prey free-falls towards a certain doom. Losal has somehow managed to scramble into his seat and has locked himself in—little good that will do him, Charles thinks grimly—but Jorjun follows gravity’s lead and slides along the floor to smash into the bottom of the front console, his consciousness flickering in and out for a moment before it goes blank.

Maybe that’s for the best, Charles thinks, swallowing hard. The front viewscreen is taken up entirely by the swirling, bright orange surface of the planet now, and as they begin to fall through its atmosphere, the glass goes foggy from the heat. An ominous cracking noise announces a chip that quickly spiders out over the whole viewscreen. The glass won’t hold for much longer, but that might not matter anyway, as the D’Khantunn are still firing a few more shots, hardly even bothering to hit them now. It’s become a game to them.

Charles looks away from the front of the ship to try to find Belyan’s gaze. She’s his friend, one of the few beings in the universe who has ever treated him like an equal and not a weapon or something to fear and admire. But when he turns, he sees she’s not looking at him. Instead, she’s pulled up one of the pictures Charles has seen dozens of times by now, the one of her and her children at the Gold Springs on the Oyemai home planet. Tisoth, her youngest, is mid-jump, springing from a rock next to the water into Belyan’s arms, while Grem and Klyeuh splash behind her, shoving playfully at each other with their spindly little arms.

“Oyemai are natural swimmers,” Belyan had explained the first time she showed it to him. “Grem would live in the water if I let her. But Tisoth was still small and she hadn’t ever been to the Springs before, and her sisters had been telling her stories. Said there were monsters in the water, that kind of nonsense. She was very wary of it, but I promised her I’d catch her as long as she tried to jump in just once. She spent the rest of the day jumping in and out of the water after the first time, she loved it so much. She couldn’t stop.”

Charles watches as the ship gives another great shudder and the screen goes blank. Beylan closes her eyes and tilts her head back against the headrest. Her fingers are balled into tight fists where they rest on her lap. Oyemai have twelve fingers on each hand, four knuckles on each finger, and every single one of Beylan’s is pale pink where the red skin stretches over her bones, bracing for the impact she knows is coming.

There’s an odd calmness to the scene, as opposed to the chaos of everything else around them. Charles should take comfort in Beylan’s strength even now. Love like the kind she has for her children is why his people were created in the first place; so the Dark Planet would never be able to prevail, and beings like Beylan could continue to grow and evolve and explore the furthest reaches of the universe in peace. His people were hard-wired to respond positively and proactively to such displays of selflessness—perhaps if there were others besides him on this ship they might have even been able to save them.

But there is no one else. Charles is the last Element, and all he feels now is an all-encompassing terror. He has failed. His people have failed. He is going to die and then, in a handful of days, the entire universe will go dark when the Dark Planet stands in his place in the temple on Earth.

His blood rushes in his ears and the ground rushes up in front of the viewscreen, vast and orange and beautiful for one shining moment, and then the glass finally shatters.

 

*

 

On his day off Erik usually sleeps till noon but this morning he’s woken by the insistent beeping of his comm link, groaning into his pillow while reaching over to fumble blindly with one hand on the bedside table for the damned thing. He ends up knocking it onto the floor and wincing at the crash, though it keeps right on beeping resiliently so at least he knows he successfully wasted his money by bothering to get a warranty.

With a grunt of effort, Erik pushes himself up out of his pillow and forcibly cracks his eyes open from where they seem to have glued shut, and drapes himself over the side of his mattress to scoop up the comm link from the ground. He glances at the caller ID and collapses back down before pressing the button to open the transmission.

“Mama,” he mutters, rolling onto his side so he can press the link to one ear, and it’s all the invitation Edie needs.

“It’s a beautiful, sunny day and you’re still in bed,” she accuses him, her gentle, lilting voice light and teasing, “I didn’t raise my son to be such a bump on a log.”

“Mama,” Erik groans, because they have this same conversation every time she calls him at the—he squints at his alarm clock—ungodly hour of 10am. “It’s my one day to sleep in. Every other day I’m up by 5.”

“Yes, and off to work where you barely socialize with your coworkers,” Edie says briskly. In the background he can hear water running, so she must be out on her little porch tending to her small collection of plants. “You should be taking advantage of your day off to put yourself out there, Schatz, and meet new people. Or visit your poor old mother and go to temple with her. It’s all she dreams of.”

“You’re not that old,” Erik grumbles, affronted on her behalf, and she laughs. “You know there’s nothing more in this world I desire than to take you to temple—”

“My good son,” Edie coos.

“—but if I have to sit through Mrs. Zirconia judging my profession while trying to set me up with her daughter one more time, I will set her three-foot tall wig on fire.”

“Erik,” Edie chides, but he can tell she’s trying not to laugh, “Mrs. Zirconia has known you since you were a baby on my hip and means well. Besides,” she adds, perfectly casual, “she has a son too.”

“Mama—”

“I’m only saying,” Edie overrides him, “I do wish my only son would bring someone home one day for me to meet.”

“I’ve got my career to focus on right now,” Erik argues. He takes a moment to thank his lucky stars his mother lives too far away to be able to casually drop in on him for a visit, because his single-room apartment looks like a tornado just passed through, so at least she can’t harang him about that too. “I’m too busy with work for a relationship right now.”

“You’re going to regret this one day,” Edie warns, and since she can’t see him Erik takes the liberty to roll his eyes. “I was listening to the radio just the other day and they were advertising that nice cruise on Fhloston Paradise and I thought of you. Don’t you think it’d be nice to take a break and get cozy with someone for a week of relaxation? What about your friend Raven?”

“First of all, I don’t want to get cozy with anyone, let alone talk about it with my mother,” Erik growls, “and secondly, Raven is a friend, Mama. Just a friend.”

“I’ve been cursed with a grumpy, misanthropic son,” Edie laments, but she sounds nothing less than fond. “Oh well. You can’t blame a mother for trying.”

Erik sighs. “Maybe one day, Mama. Right now is just not the time.”

“I know, _Liebling_ ,” she answers warmly, “but I wouldn’t be carrying out my motherly duties if I didn’t badger you properly.”

Scoffing, Erik rolls over onto his back to stare up at the long crack in his ceiling. “Believe me, message received, loud and clear.” His comm link beeps softly in his ear with an incoming message. “Listen, Mama, I’ve got to go. I have a few errands to run and then I promise I’ll go out and be social.”

“Alright, I’ll let you go,” Edie says, and in the background Erik hears the squeak of the water spigot as she turns off the hose. “When will you visit next?”

Screwing up his eyes, Erik runs a few mental calculations. “Not my next off day, but the one after that?”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Edie agrees. Erik can practically feel her drawing up a mental grocery list to shop for in order to cook one of her five-course meals. “Have a good day, _Liebling_ , I love you.”

“I love you too, Mama,” Erik replies, and then ends the call. Sitting up in bed, Erik slides a thumb across the comm link’s screen to wipe away the smudge left by his cheek. Sure enough, there’s a message from Raven waiting and he taps it once to open it.

[ _It’s your turn to drive today, just text me when you’re on the way_ ]

He grunts unhappily, scrubbing at his face, his fingers rasping against this morning’s stubble as he musters the energy to tap out a reply and finally get out of bed. His mother is right, he does spend maybe too much of his time alone, but when he’s on the job he’s stuck in a tin can with sometimes a thousand other people in the middle of deep space. For someone who has never been a people person, the little personal time Erik does get is a precious commodity, and he’s loath to share it with anyone, even Raven, his best friend since their schooldays.

In fact, she may be his only friend at this point. His mother wasn’t lying when she called him a misanthrope.

With a long-suffering moan, Erik types out a single [ _k_ ] and sends it to Raven before swinging his legs over the side of his bed and making his way to the closet of a bathroom in the corner. He waves a hand vaguely at the window and the metal blinds flick open and fly upwards, revealing daylight and the city outside.

New York City in 2318 is still as bustling as ever. Even with the ordinance from last month that added five more fast-lanes above the already fifty-three existing ones that stack on top of each other like layers on a loud and dangerous cake, the traffic outside the window doesn’t seem to have ebbed at all. Hovercars flash by in a constant blur, the occasional protesting honk breaking the constant hum of their engines, but Erik’s grown used to the noise, and he hardly registers it as shoulders his way into the bathroom and shucks out of his pajamas, turning on the shower water with another flick of his fingers.

The shower is quick for the sake of water conservation, but it does help to improve his mood and wake him up, and by the time he’s dressed and freshly shaved he feels much more human. He steps out of the bathroom and moves to the tiny kitchenette, punching on the coffee machine, which will have automatically reset itself, and rummaging through his fridge while he waits for it to brew. There's a grapefruit waiting for him in the produce drawer alongside a wilting head of lettuce, but apart from that and an almost-expired jug of milk, the fridge is rather barren. Unsurprising, since his last trip to the supermarket was over a week ago. Erik adds grocery shopping to his to-do list for the day and calls a knife into his palm to cut open his breakfast.

He turns on the news to watch while he’s eating. It’s mostly the same inane stories as usual—responses to the Intergalactic Federation’s new trade agreement with the Iegol nation, rumours about rogue D’Khantuun ships sneaking through the border of the Milky Way despite their continued ban, celebrity gossip—Erik hardly takes any of it in, and twenty minutes later, he’s tossing his coffee cup and bowl into the small sink next to the fridge and heading out the door to the garage.

The first stop of the day is the Multipass Office; he needs to renew before his next job takes him off Earth. Then he’ll stop at the bank to deposit his paycheck and then swing by Raven’s apartment and pick her up. They haven’t seen each other in a few weeks, it’ll be good to catch up finally, and to feel like he’s actually doing something social so he won’t have to lie to his mother later and feel guilty. Raven also got a new roommate last month that she hasn’t been able to tell him about in detail—‘Weird, but nice enough’ had been her initial verdict—and he’s interested in how that’s been going for her.

He punches open the door to the apartment complex’s garage and makes his way down the row until he reaches his own hovercar and hops in, already bracing himself for the nightmare that he knows traffic is going to be, completely unaware that in just a few minutes his whole life is going to be turned upside down.

 

*

 

“I hate to say I told you so, bub,” Logan says, taking out a cigar from the inside of his ceremonial cloak. “But I did tell you.”

President Bishop glances up from where he’d been staring at his desk, frowning deeply. “Over two hundred lives have just been lost because of that… that—”

“Dark Planet,” Logan puts in. “Death begets death. I tried to tell you firing at it would only make it stronger. You cannot defeat the Dark Planet with any weapon you have in your arsenal, Mr. President. It requires something much more sophisticated.”

Commander Ferguson rounds on him, one eyebrow raised. “More sophisticated than the weapons of the entire Federation?”

Logan nods. “That’s what I said.”

She snorts, entirely unconvinced, but Logan doesn’t even bat an eye. He’s used to disbelief in others. In this day and age, belief is a hard thing to come by, and the Elements have isolated themselves so securely over the past five thousand years that it’s no wonder people have forgotten they exist.

And what are the mad ravings of an outdated old man, he thinks, recalling Ferguson’s initial argument of even allowing him onto the bridge of the president’s Battlestar and just barely resisting rolling his eyes. It’s true he’s been around long enough for his reputation to precede him, but he’s not mad. He’d sounded perfectly calm and rational when he’d told Bishop firing at the Dark Planet was the most goddamn stupid thing in the universe to do.

“Sir,” one of the bridge officers interrupts suddenly, looking up sharply from his screen, “we’re receiving an incoming distress call from the Delta Sector, near R-8230.”

“That’s right on the edge of the Milky Way,” Bishop answers, raising an eyebrow, “at least 30,000 light years from our position here.”

“They say they’re Oyemai,” the officer continues uncertainly, and Logan’s cigar nearly falls out of his mouth when his jaw goes slack, “and that they’re being attacked by D'Khantuun.”

“D'Khantuun?” Bishop demands sharply. “What are the D'Khantuun doing in this quadrant?” He passes a hand over his face, muttering, “As if the Dark Planet alone wasn’t enough—”

“Save that ship,” Logan barks, startling everyone on the bridge into looking over at him, “they’re carrying the only means possible of defeating the Dark Planet.”

Bishop lowers his hand slowly, spine straightening. “What do you mean,” he asks calmly, voice even, “do the Oyemai carry some kind of super weapon?”

“Enough about weapons,” Logan snaps, “just—”

“There’s no way we can cross that kind of distance in time,” Ferguson interjects, though she sounds remorseful. “By the time we get there, it’ll be too late.”

As much as Logan hates to agree, he knows she’s right. “The Oyemai were entrusted with the last of the Elements,” he says quietly, “and the Elements are the key to vanquishing the Dark Planet. Without them we’re lost.”

“Find one of our border satellites,” Bishop says, voice heavy, “put it on screen.”

Everyone looks to the wide viewscreen as the image comes in. R-8230 is a magnificent gas giant planet, deep orange in color and reminding Logan of a more serene Jupiter. The Oyemai ship is a tiny speck on the screen until the satellite zooms in, her bulky frame swaying awkwardly like a clumsy bumblebee on the breeze as she’s brought under fire. Five D'Khantuun ships close in on her, the sleeker and more agile warships overtaking her in seconds. Right before their eyes, the Oyemai are blown to pieces, their ship going up in flames as the D'Khantuun open fire. It’s a massacre. The peaceful Oyemai never stood a chance.

Down at his side, Logan clenches his fist. He’s careful not to allow his claws to come out, but it’s a near thing. Over the long years of his existence Logan’s had his share of violence, but nothing sickens him more than the murder of innocent people. He bites down hard on his cigar, nearly enough to tear it in half. And now the last Element is gone too.

Their quarry annihilated, the D'Khantuun ships speed quickly away, leaving nothing but a ruined husk of a ship and a scattered trail of mangled debris. There’s a heavy silence on the bridge, though Logan doesn’t quite think it’s sunk in for everyone yet: there goes Earth’s last chance of avoiding total extinction.

“Any survivors?” President Bishop asks at last.

“We’re scanning, sir,” another officer reports grimly. She shakes her head. “I’m not picking up on any—wait.”

Logan picks his head up, hardly daring to draw breath.

“I’m picking up on signs of life in the wreckage, sir,” the officer continues hesitantly, “but it’s...tiny? It’s almost infinitesimal, I don’t understand.”

“It’s the Element,” Logan says at once, with all the conviction he can muster because of course: it makes sense. “He or she went into a sort of hibernation mode to protect themselves and survive the blasts. You’ve got to get a ship out there pronto. Sir.”

“This Element...person,” Ferguson says slowly, “they can help us defeat the Dark Planet?”

Logan’s answering feral grin has several of the other officers on the bridge take a step back. “You betcha, bub.”

“Then we’d better get down there fast,” President Bishop says. He turns to two other officers. “Send out our fastest recovery team. I want this Element person in McCoy’s Regenerator in three hours.”

The officers snap to a salute then quickly turn and exit the conference room. Logan begins to follow them, intent on joining the rescue team, but before he can reach the door the president calls, “And just where do you think you’re going?”

Logan grinds his teeth, and tosses a look over his shoulder that has Ferguson’s hand flying to the electric baton at her hip. “A Priest has to be there,” he says with as much patience as he can muster. “The Element won’t speak English. Hell, they might not even speak Space Standard. The Elements and Priests have their own special language, they’ve had it since the dawn of time. The Element is going to be scared when they wake up, they won’t know what’s going on. I should be there to help.”

President Bishop mulls the information over for a moment, chewing the inside of his lip as he considers. Then, much to Logan’s relief, he gives a short nod and gestures another officer forward, a boy who looks like he can’t have been long out of boot camp with red hair and freckles. “Cassidy will take you to McCoy’s lab to wait for the rescue party,” he says briskly. “That will be all for now, Mr. Howlett.”

Officially dismissed, Logan internally sighs in relief. He feels like he’s been tangled up in red tape all day; it’ll be a vast improvement to be off the Battlestar and actually helping somewhere instead of talking until he’s blue in the face. Since he joined the Priesthood it feels like all he’s been doing is talking. Now it’s finally time to act, and Logan has never felt more ready. He follows Cassidy out of the sliding hatch and down a hallway towards a shuttle pod.

“It’s a little over a two-hour ride to McCoy’s facility in New York without hyperspeed,” Cassidy explains. “We should get there just before the rescue crew.”

“Great,” Logan grunts.

They reach the shuttle pod and Cassidy turns, giving Logan’s cigar a sideways look. Rolling his eyes, Logan takes one last puff, then extinguishes the lit end against his palm with a grimace. Cassidy watches with wide eyes as the burn is immediately repaired with new skin, not even leaving a mark.

“Nice party trick,” he says with a grin.

Logan shrugs. “It works all right with the ladies.”

“I’m sure it does,” Cassidy replies. “Come on. No time to lose, or so I’ve heard.”

He winks, and leads the way into the shuttle pod, Logan following and thinking maybe everybody on this ship isn’t a complete idiot.

The ride in fact does take them a little over a two hours, but they’re still there before the rescue crew. This turns out to be an advantage because Dr. Hank McCoy, Logan quickly finds out, is fucking _crazy_ about science. He is especially crazy about being privy to the discovery of a “new” alien species, never mind that Logan has been trying to explain to him for the past fifteen minutes that Elements aren’t undiscovered, they’ve simply been keeping to themselves for several thousand years, uninterested in the space race that gripped the Earth and many surrounding galaxies.

According to Logan’s contact with the Oyemai, they’ve also slowly been dying out. The Element that was shot down with the Oyemai ship was the last survivor of their race, and it’s sheer dumb luck that he or she survived the attack. Logan just hopes that for all his talk, McCoy will be able to show results and revive them successfully in time. Who knows how human tech will work on Elemental bodies?

“If this scan from the recovery team is correct, this new species of ‘Elements’, as you call them, has a DNA strand with almost a third more proteins than human DNA, some of them artificially engineered. That means more genetic code to work with, more than mutants even, and each with a very specific, man-made purpose. Or alien-made, as the case may be,” McCoy says, staring at a screen that’s flashing information so quickly it makes Logan’s eyes hurt. “This is absolutely astounding. The science is perfect. This person _will be_ perfect.”

“Will be?” Logan asks. “How stable is their condition?”

McCoy glances away from the screen, a slight frown coming over his cat-like features. “Well, the pulse is only faint, but they’ll manage until they get here. The main concern is going to be tissue regrowth. The blast from when the ship exploded left the body charred and several bones broken, though the mind somehow was able to wall itself away and keep the vital organs functioning. In the end, it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Logan lets himself relax a little bit. So maybe they aren’t going to be completely screwed after all. McCoy gives him a small, reassuring smile.

“The Regenerator has re-created entire bodies from a handful of active cells in otherwise dead tissue. Your friend will be fine.”

“They’re not my friend, exactly,” Logan grunts.

McCoy looks like he’s about to ask for clarification, but Logan turns away to lean up against the wall, tired of repeating the same information all day. Shrugging, McCoy is happy enough to return to his screens instead, scanning the data over and over again and typing things into the margins. Logan passes the time by unsheathing his claws and picking at the dirt underneath his nails as he wonders what the Element will be like, if they’ll remember anything about the attack, and if they’ll know what was done with the stones. Logan knows they were traveling separately from the Element, but Priest Losal had been adamant that their position remain secret until he could tell him in person, distrustful of their comm link.

Turns out he had probably been right to be wary. After all, there had been that shady character who visited Logan at his new apartment a few weeks ago… what was his name? M-somthing. Marko, Logan thinks. He’d said he was an art dealer and had been interested in some lore he’d heard about ancient alien stones, but Logan hadn’t trusted the way he smelled—too eager and anxious—and had turned him away, feigning knowledge of any Priesthood or stones. He hadn’t been certain before, but he’s positive now that the man had zeroed in on the Priesthood tattoo on the inside of his arm, though, just as he was shutting the door.

Probably this man was a D’Khantuun agent, and though Logan hadn’t given him anything, that doesn’t mean Marko or the other D’Khantuun weren’t listening in when Priest Losal called his comm device, waiting for a hint of a word to know when and where to strike. The thought makes Logan’s blood begin to boil again. If they get through the next few days, he fully intends to make whomever shot down the Oyemai pay. Before his thoughts can turn too dark, however, the door to the lab bangs open and four people enter standing around a glass-covered stretcher that hovers along the ground. Logan’s pulse suddenly skyrockets with anticipation.

Laying on the stretcher is a surprisingly small body, its skin raw and red where it isn’t covered in black. There are no discernible features; everything has been burnt away, even its clothes, and the only sign that the figure is in fact alive is the sluggishly beating heart monitor projected on top of the glass. The sight is somehow underwhelming and heartbreaking at the same time. It isn’t a good feeling to see something so mighty brought so low, so Logan looks away. McCoy, on the other hand, can’t tear his eyes from the sight.

“Amazing,” he breathes as he makes his way over to the stretcher. His sharp fingernails clack against the glass as he begins typing on the screen projected next to the heart monitor, and a small red light flashes into life by the body’s feet, moving to scan over its entirety. The light turns green for a moment, then disappears. “All clear,” McCoy says, smiling brilliantly. “Let’s get them into the Regenerator.”

One of the four stretcher bearers nods and leads the way through a door that opens automatically at McCoy’s words, the other three and the stretcher following. In the meantime, McCoy moves over to the reinforced viewing window that looks out onto the room with the Regenerator, gesturing for Logan to stand next to him. They watch silently as the rescue crew lift the Element into the Regenerator—a machine like a large, glass-domed coffin with peach colored cushioning all along the bottom—then come back through the door into the viewing room.

The lid of the Regenerator comes down, closing the body of the Element in again, then another protective shield, this one made of plastic and metal, slides over the top. A screen in front of McCoy flickers to life, displaying a thermal re-creation of what’s happening underneath the glass, and he taps a few buttons until something starts beeping faintly and a red light shines out from around the edges of the Regenerator. A button appears suddenly on the screen, and McCoy presses it without looking. The machine begins to hum.

“The medical team already set the broken arms and legs, but this will instigate rapid re-growth of the bones,” he explains.

A moment later, the red light turns to green and the Regenerator beeps. Another button appears, and likewise, McCoy hits it, watching the events in the other room intently. The green light turns purple, and on the screen, the body starts twitching.

“What’s going on?” Logan asks, thick eyebrows contracting together.

“He’s re-growing skin and hair. Reacting to the stimuli.” McCoy gives him a sideways look. “That’s good. His bones are completely healed as well. He’s going to be good as new in just a few seconds.”

“You keep saying ‘he’ so confidently,” Logan says, almost as an afterthought.

McCoy’s eyebrows raise. “That’s because he is a he,” he says. “According to the body scan, your Element bears a remarkably similar anatomy to a human male. Since he was engineered, I’d say that part was probably on purpose.”

“Probably,” Logan mumbles. It makes a certain sense. A being created to save the universe but stationed on Earth, you’d want something that looked like an Earthling.

The light from the Regenerator flashes green again and the whirring stops, but according to the picture on the screen, the Element is breathing lightly, though apart from that, he doesn’t move. He must still be out.

McCoy presses a series of buttons on a different screen, and an electronic female voice announces, “Applying thermal bandages.”

“Ought to preserve his modesty a little bit,” McCoy says. Then he presses a few more buttons, and the metal and plastic shell slides back and they finally get their first real look at the being that is going to save the world.

Even reborn like a phoenix from the ashes, he is still surprisingly small, and for Logan to think that, it must be true. He can’t be over five and a half feet tall, and his face is so youthful it could be a human teenager laying there inside that glass coffin. His chest rises and falls calmly as he breathes, and from their slightly elevated vantage point, Logan can see the way his hands are laying palm up where they rest at his sides. The thermal bandages do little to disguise the fact that yes, he is in fact male, but they band down the sides of his legs and across his ribs and arms as well, giving a little extra protection, although Logan thinks they can’t be that warm. The sooner they can get him out of the lab, the better.

“Can you remove the glass?” Logan asks. “I need to wake him up so we can get go—”

But before he can finish, the Element gives one massive, jerking gasp and bolts awake, eyes flying wide and mouth falling open in a shout.

 

*

 

The first thing Charles does when he wakes is scream. For one long moment he can still feel the heat of the explosion on his skin, the last shrieks from Losal and Belyan’s minds before they’re extinguished, and the too-bright light against his eyes appears as fire to his feverish brain. He chokes in frantic, gasping breaths, and slowly the world around him focuses. He’s trapped in some kind of glass prison, which he immediately skitters to the end of, pressing up against the metal so he’s less exposed. Has he been captured, he wonders wildly? Did the D’Khantuun soldiers save him from the wreckage only to lock him up and torture him? After what they’ve done to the peaceful Oyemai, Charles wouldn’t be surprised.

Just then, a movement to the side of the glass pod catches his eye, part of a wall disappearing to reveal a window with two figures standing in it, one blue and furred, and one shorter with pale skin and thick dark hair. There’s something sticking out from between his lips, but it drops and falls to the floor when his mouth opens wider in surprise. They don’t look like D’Khantuun, though, which can only mean good things.

“Who are you?” he shouts. “And where am I? How did you get me out of the ship? If you are friends of the Oyemai, I beg you, you must let me out. I am on a mission of the utmost importance.”

An intercom clicks into life and light, but slightly growling voice begins to speak—the voice of the blue one, but his words are garbled, in a language Charles has never heard before. Charles considers reaching out with his telepathy to try and translate, but movement over the top of the glass casing catches his eye—some sort of camera sliding towards him—and he jerks flush against the metal wall again, frowning. He doesn’t have time to play the lab rat, he needs to get to Earth. Unless this is Earth? The second man certainly looks like a human, from the pictures Charles has seen.

He leaps forward toward the front of the glass and begins to bang on it. “Stop, stop!” he says. “There isn’t time for this. I need you to let me out!”

The short man grabs the blue one by the arm and apparently starts to argue with him about something, gesturing violently towards Charles, and Charles, beginning to feel uneasy again, starts to back away. Almost reflexively, he reaches out and touches the shorter man's mind, trying to gage his intentions, but somehow, his touch is deflected. He freezes, heart jumping to his throat. Never in his life has he met a creature whose mind he couldn’t touch.

Suddenly he feels incredibly claustrophobic. The camera is still hovering above him, capturing his every movement while the two men argue in their garbled language over the intercom, the space too bright, the glass casing constricting. All he wants to do is get away. Casting a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure they aren’t paying attention, Charles moves back over to the metal wall he’d pressed up against earlier. He can feel it humming slightly against his shoulder, and when he trails a hand along the surface surreptitiously, he finds that the humming is strongest on the top right corner of the wall. That must be the power source.

When he glances up, Charles sees another person has joined the others behind the glass, a young man with red hair and something that looks unmistakably like a phaser on his left hip. _Time to go_ , Charles thinks to himself, unable to even begin pondering what he’ll do if this isn’t Earth and he can’t find transportation to the stones or to the proper planet. He splays his hand over the humming metal, bringing his fingers together, and with one sharp strike, punches through to the other side, grabbing at the wires he feels inside and ripping them out as hard as he can.

A klaxon begins to sound, so loud it resonates through Charles’ chest, but the glass panel covering him also mercifully slides back, and suddenly he’s free. He rolls off the side of the pod, falling to the unforgiving floor behind it, and quickly picks himself up to a crouching position, peering over the top of the pod.

Everyone is shouting, though the short man has his back entirely to Charles now, yelling at the others as if to fend them off. Charles’ head pounds with all the heightened emotions in the room—he may not be able to understand a word of what’s being said, but the fear, mistrust, and anger are translating just fine.

“I just want to leave,” he calls warily, trying to enunciate each word as loudly and slowly as possible, but still no one seems to understand him.

Instead the red-headed man starts to draw his phaser, and Charles decides it’s time to bail. He sets off at a dead sprint towards the wall behind him, ignoring the shouts as they rise in volume and bracing himself for impact—

He crashes right through the flimsy material with a loud ripping sound, barreling through the thin plastic sheeting and stumbling out into a dark, narrow tunnel. A loud alarm starts to blare somewhere outside so Charles punches through the grating and pulls himself up into the shaft, scrambling to his feet. He spins around in a circle dizzily, looking to his left and right and trying to determine which way he should go in order to get out of here. Where here is still remains to be seen, but the decision is made for him when heavy footsteps come echoing down the passageway from the right, so he takes off to the left.

His legs are shaky, his muscles trembling with exertion every step is costing him. Charles throws up one arm to brace himself against the cold, metal wall and keep from toppling over completely: he’s like a newborn just learning to walk even though the muscle memory is still there. It’s jarring, and leaves Charles panting with a mixture of weariness and fear as the footsteps grow louder and louder behind him.

Charles rounds a corner, nearly hurtling all the way into the opposite wall of the tunnel with the momentum he’s built up, but then stops up short in dismay: he’s hit a dead end, the passageway coming to an abrupt end only a few yards away. The footsteps are nearly on top of him now, though, so he hurries forward to examine the wall, hoping there’s a chance he can push his way through again. It worked before, didn’t it?

Along the wall is a row of thin, horizontal slats with a tiny bit of light leaking through. Charles puts a palm against them and feels a small rush of breeze. Determined, Charles pushes harder, adrenaline lending him strength as he slams both hands against the wall panel and pops it all the way out, a sudden bright burst of light blinding him momentarily before he quickly pulls himself through the hole in the wall.

A blast of air hits him as he straightens, squinting until his eyes gradually adjust and keeping himself pressed against the concrete at his back out of wariness. Once he can see again, Charles is glad he did, because he discovers he’s standing high up on a narrow ledge, looking out across a view that is...overwhelming.

Huge, massive buildings crowd in close in all directions, towering up into the sky and nearly blocking it out entirely; Charles can only make out a small sliver of blue in the far-off distance. Hundreds of mini-ships fly through the air, weaving between each other and around the buildings at different altitudes, going so fast that some of them are merely blurs. The noise is deafening, Charles’ hair blowing back from the sheer force of the ships flying by. Belatedly he realizes his eyes have actually begun to water, stinging because of the acrid air that settles heavily in his lungs, chest heaving as he gasps for breath. Compared to the peaceful villages of the Oyemai, and their small pod-like structures they built for homes that remind Charles of mushrooms, this place is chaos personified.

Looking around frantically, Charles tries to get a grip on himself and determine where to go next. Stranded on a ledge as he is, he doesn’t have many options. A cautious look down tells him he’s so far above the ground he can’t even see it, and while the ledge wraps around either side of the building, odds are he’ll only be able to go in a circle if he tries to follow it.  
A loud shout directly behind him draws his attention back to the tunnel he came from. Bending down, Charles peers back down the airway shaft and is met by the sight of three armored men crowded together at the bend, weapons raised and pointed directly at him. The leader says something, slow and menacing, his mind bubbling with something close to annoyance, but Charles still can’t understand a word.

Charles ducks out of their direct line of sight, inching away from the opening of the tunnel and making his way around the side of the building, always with his back pressed against the wall. Maneuvering his way around the corner, Charles shuffles sideways and tries to look for some kind of way down. One of the fast-flying mini-ships suddenly peels off from the main flow of traffic and comes to a halt hovering a few yards out in front of him, shining a bright light into his eyes while a strange, disembodied voice shouts at him over the wind. Charles throws both his hands up to block out the light, heart caught somewhere in his throat—what if they shoot him? He might’ve survived the attack on the Oyemai ship but his body won’t be able to recuperate from a direct shot.

Desperate now, Charles glances down again. More mini-ships flash by, levels and levels of them going down and down and down. If he really is destined to die, he’d rather not have a repeat experience of being torn apart by phaser blasts.

Taking a deep breath, Charles leans forward and plunges down off the ledge.

The wind whistles through his ears and Charles closes his eyes as the world around him becomes a wild blur as he plummets downwards. It’s almost like he’s flying, serene and weightless as his stomach twists, and Charles tries to relax and lose himself in the sensation of pure freefall. Something buffets him, a near miss with one of the mini-ships no doubt, but it startles Charles into opening his eyes again, just in time to see something garish and magenta racing towards him—

Charles barely has enough time to brace himself before he smashes directly down through the roof of one of the mini-ships with a loud crash.

 

*

 

The Multipass Office is always a pain in the ass to deal with under any circumstances, and doubly so whenever Erik ends up at Agnes’ window. He swears the old bat moves slower than a three-toed Norrak on a hot day, and on purpose too because he’s also fairly certain she’s made it her life’s mission to be as inconvenient as possible, and never mind the little gold plaque taped to the outside of the foggy glass of her station that reads “SMILE FOR FASTER SERVICE.”

Erik smiles, painfully, with every last tooth in his head and Agnes glares back and moves at the same molasses pace as always. He wonders if the Multipass Office is somehow located at the crux of some kind of time-warped wormhole, or something to that effect, because by the time he finally gets his shit and can leave Agnes behind in a puff of exhaust, he swears three weeks have gone by even though it’s only been an hour.

At least the bank won’t take as long. They’re fast and efficient and all-too ready to siphon Erik’s money away.

Raven’s already buzzing him with more texts demanding to know how much longer he’s going to be, and Erik mutters curses under his breath as he tries to type back a short response. He’s got one eye on the road still so he knows he’s not in any danger of slamming into a building but there’s little he can do about foreseeing anything coming from above: namely, he’s completely unprepared when something large and solid comes crashing down through the roof of his car and slams down into the backseat.

Erik shouts, dropping his comm link and swerving hard out of reflex, diving out of traffic before slamming on his breaks to take stock of the situation. He flicks the switch that shifts the gears into park and twists around, his mouth dropping open slightly when he sees the wreckage that’s in his backseat; torn sheets of metal and wiring from the top of the car tumble into the center through a giant hole in the roof like a solid, metallic waterfall. It’s thousands of credits worth of damage, if not totaled.

“What the fuck?” he hisses, unbuckling his seatbelt to try and climb into the back, but just as he leans forward he reels backwards, smashing into the console, his pulse skyrocketing as a pale, blood-streaked arm shoots into the air and flops onto the back of the passenger seat.

Someone moans something in a language he doesn’t understand. Erik sinks his powers into the nearest free piece of metal, a little sliver from the light fixture that had caved in, and calls it over into his palm, breathing hard. There’s a rustling noise as the interloper shifts again, and Erik inches forward, the metal shank trembling in his hand. He peers over the top of the seats. He freezes.

“What the fuck.”

There’s a person in his backseat. A practically naked man, dressed only in what looks like bands of thermal tape, crashed through his car roof and somehow was not killed by the impact. The man is on his back, splayed half on the seat and half on the floor and struggling to sit up, bleeding from a scrape to his arm that also tore off part of the white bandages, whatever they are. Apart from that he doesn’t seem that scathed, but he must be running on some kind of adrenaline; there’s no way he didn’t break at least one bone from that.

“Don’t move!” Erik shouts, and the man’s face jerks up, his gaze meeting Erik’s. His eyes are a deep, piercing, almost other-worldly blue, and their glance seems to shoot straight through Erik the second their eyes lock. For one long moment, they just stare at each other.

Then the man begins babbling in some language Erik has never heard before in his life.

“Paknena, Mo melaloy’ré pan Oyemai dat aranoylipot bet’met bada foun metalkcta. Mo akilet akta Mino assin. Dot chay selovoy ilo Mino assin ont konkot, ilo Monda muwelso icoulay Mena. Mo bana D’Khantuun makna helé elgoun'doloun dat Mina. Mo santonoï'aypa givo’mana, pakenena, deno achta givo’mana Mena.”

Words tumble from his mouth at an alarming clip, and he sits up eagerly, leaning towards Erik, his eyes wide and face expressive as he speaks. Although Erik can’t understand a word, he’s mesmerized. When the man finishes and Erik is still gaping down at him, however, disappointment flashes very evidently across his features.

“Deno muchtaman Mena,” he says. “Nalifta kiba maha'nili chtaman?” He sits up, giving Erik a considering look before slowly reaching out and resting two of his fingers against Erik’s temple, the touch so light it’s almost not there. “Alollé perod, sän perod'jun.”

For a split second, Erik sees in the other man’s eyes what’s coming. He jerks, trying to pull away, but the man’s fingers press in and suddenly he’s not the only one in his head. There’s another presence, burning a bright yellow-orange as it races through his mind and leaving a trail of upended memories and impressions in its wake.

Abruptly, Erik can taste his mother’s hamantaschen, which she hasn’t made in months but that always reminds him of Purim in their first apartment in the city when he was only five. It’s one of his first memories, and he jerks again weakly, trying to get away from that intruding presence. No dice. He feels it dig deeper, more images flashing behind Erik’s eyes—some of which are not his own—and he opens his mouth to scream as his vision is flooded with fire and he feels, physically feels two lives being extinguished. The noise is in his throat, halfway out, when just as suddenly as it had appeared, the presence retreats completely.

Erik gasps, falling forward against the seat cushion, the shout turning into a weak moan as he slowly comes back to himself. When he looks up, he sees the man is staring at him apologetically, wincing slightly as he rubs his fingers against his own temple.

“I’m sorry,” he says, miraculously in English. “But time is of the essence, and I thought since no one else on this planet seems to speak my language, I should try to learn your own. That’s the fastest way.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Erik gurgles weakly, pushing himself up again on trembling arms. He feels punch-drunk, thoughts still banging around out of order inside his head and he surprises himself by suddenly shivering violently, reaching up to rub at one ear as if to check for leaks.

“Give it another moment, my friend,” the interloper who _crashed through the ceiling of Erik’s car_ says in his gently lilting accent. It sounds British, posh and utterly out of place. “I’m afraid I was a little heavy-handed in my haste. I truly am sorry.”

“Who are you?” Erik demands groggily, trying to glare but his face is kind of numb so who knows how effective it is. The haze is beginning to clear, though, allowing him to focus on the stranger in the backseat as he stares back at Erik apologetically.

“I’d be happy to explain,” comes the answer, finishing-school levels of polite, “but I’m in a hurry and I need your help first.”

“Is this how you normally ask for help?” Erik snaps. “Wreck someone’s car and then mind-whammy them into compliance?”

“You’re not exactly complying, currently,” he points out. After a moment of careful introspection Erik has to admit he’s right. “My name is Charles Xavier and I’m being chased. I really need to find a way to get to Earth, as quickly as possible. Can you help me?”

Erik stares at him. Vibrant blue eyes stare intently back, hopeful but otherwise utterly serious. Still, Erik gives it another couple moments. He half-expects Raven to cruise up on her hoverbike filming him like this is some kind of prank, but when he surreptitiously glances around there’s no sign of her.

Finally, with all the careful delicacy of a bomb squad sergeant whose hands are three inches deep into an armed warhead, he says, “You’re on Earth.”

“This is Earth?” Charles demands, sounding torn between scandalized outrage and horrified awe. His head whips sideways towards the window and he turns the same expression towards the New York skyline. “This is...unexpected.”

“Join the club,” Erik mutters.

“Uh-oh,” Charles says, and Erik didn’t realize until now but this happens to be exactly the last thing he ever wants to hear from the mouth of someone who’s just fallen from the sky and crashed through the roof of his car.

Several police cars are zooming towards them, sirens wailing and lights flashing. Charles sinks down lower in the backseat as they fan out around Erik’s car, surrounding them and turning off their sirens but keeping their angry blue and red lights flashing. Erik swivels around slowly to stare at Charles again.

“Are you some kind of escaped convict?”

“Convict?” Charles wonders, brow wrinkling as he works out the word with his lips. How obscenely red they are is almost distracting enough for Erik to forget how annoyed he currently is. “Oh,” Charles says abruptly, drawing Erik out of his mesmerized state, “no, I’m not some kind of _murderer_. They’re chasing me for no reason!”

“Erik Lehnsherr,” a loud, mechanized voice calls from the speakers of one of the cop cars, “we have you surrounded. Please present your Multipass for identity confirmation and surrender the wanted suspect in the backseat of your vehicle.”

“Sure you aren’t,” Erik says dubiously.

“Please help me,” Charles says softly, imploring and desperate. “Please.”

One of the cop cars breaks from their formation and sidles up alongside of Erik’s car, hovering parallel to them only a few feet away. Erik’s aware of it out of the corner of his eye but he still jumps along with Charles when two dark cables shoot out and attach to the backseat door, yanking the door completely off the side of the car.

“Shit,” Erik hisses as the door plummets away. As if his car isn’t screwed up enough, now he’s got pigs pulling it apart piece by piece. “Look, I can’t help you, alright? I don’t know who you are or what you want, but it’s too late anyway.”

“Please help,” Charles repeats as the door to the police car starts to slide open, wide-eyed and sad. “Please, Erik.”

“You don’t even know if you can trust me!” Erik protests.

“But I _do_ know,” Charles replies, with such quiet conviction that Erik already believes him, “I was in your head. I know you’re a good man, Erik. I know you can help me.”

“And how do I know _I_ can trust _you_ ,” Erik says, but it’s a weak argument and he knows it. Charles was in his head, which means he must be some kind of telepath; a powerful one, if Erik can judge by the way his ears are still slightly ringing. It’s not a stretch to imagine it’d be child’s play for Charles to slip into his mind again and _make_ Erik do as he wants. Only he...hasn’t.

“Keep your hands in plain sight,” the cop orders, “and don’t move unless I tell you.”

“Please,” Charles says to Erik, licking his lips subconsciously, but Erik can’t help but be drawn to the movement of his tongue across red lips. “Help me.”

Erik flicks a glance back towards the cop, who looks like he’s getting ready to make the jump over from his car to Erik’s. “Damn it,” Erik groans, and then grabs the cables connecting the two cars with his powers and snaps them with a sharp twang. He spins around in his seat and slams the car into first gear again, grabbing the steering wheel and yanking back on it until the nose of the car points straight down.

“Hold on!” he shouts when Charles yelps, and then he hits the gas.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Both of them scream as the car rockets downwards, shooting through oncoming traffic on several different levels in the matter of seconds. Erik thinks he narrowly misses what looks like a double-stacked semi-truck but he can’t be entirely sure on the account of everything being one large and chaotic blur. Gritting his teeth, Erik pushes the wheel forward again until the car levels out, rattling terribly and bouncing on invisible pockets of air with bone-juddering shudders, streaking between buildings with some of the police cars still hot on their tail.

“Get down!” he shouts, feeling the bullets in the air just before they make contact with the back window, shattering it with a crash and ricocheting off his back bumper. Hopefully Charles had the sense to obey and wasn’t cut to pieces by the glass, but Erik doesn’t have time to spare a glance backwards as he steers them up an alley and pulls a hard right, the car leaning so far they nearly go sideways.

His passenger’s side mirror goes pinging off as they careen dangerously close to the building, and Charles shouts something in his own language. Not dead then, Erik thinks, but he can’t spare many other brain cells to think about it. Two of the police cars managed to make the turn as well, and he can feel their guns gearing up to fire again. He swerves up, out of the way, and with a hasty, uncoordinated burst of his powers bends the barrels of the police’s mounted guns until they’re facing down, left, right, anywhere but up at his car. The police, unaware of what’s just happened, begin to fire anyway, and the alleyway turns into a mess of ricocheting metal and wildly swerving cars.

The police cars smash into each other with a deafening screech and Erik jerks the wheel again, diving down towards the lower levels of the city. The smog and garbage that far down makes the place uninhabitable, but he’s sure if they can get there, they’ll be able to hide for long enough that the police stop shooting at them. Even with his powers, Erik highly doubts he’ll be able to take on the entire NYPD.

Charles falls forward between the driver and the passenger’s seat with what sounds like a swear word, and Erik puts out an arm to prevent him from tumbling into the dash.

“Just hold on!” he shouts over the rush of air coming in from the hole in the roof and the angry whirring of the engine.

“I’m trying!” Charles snaps back. “You’re going to kill us!”

“You asked for my help, that’s what you’re getting!” Erik yells, and they both shout as a rogue sign looms up suddenly in front of them and Erik is forced to jerk the wheel violently in order to avoid hitting it.

They’re close enough Erik can see the line of mist that signifies the beginning of the abandoned levels of the city and he guns the engine the last few hundred yards, plunging them down, down, until they’re enveloped by it. He slams on the breaks and Charles gives another squawk of protest before Erik brings the car level again. He speeds them through the fog as quickly as the visibility will allow, casting a net of his power wider to try and feel for anything following them, as well as anything that they could potentially crash into. They manage to cover a dozen or so city blocks before Erik finds a hole in a building large enough to pilot the car through. It’s a tight fit, and he grits his teeth as the driver’s side mirror cracks off as well, but they’ll be safe hidden inside, at least for a little while.

He throws the car into park before turning it into idle mode so the hovering mechanisms are the only things using up power, and turns again to face Charles. He doesn’t have to go far; Charles is alarmingly close, still braced between the front seats, and staring at Erik with an inscrutable expression. Erik swallows.

“You should move up to the front seat,” he says. “I need to repair the hole in the roof.”

Charles frowns slightly, confused, but he clambers up over the armrest and settles into the passenger seat without protest, curling up in a ball and leaning against the door, his eyes still trained on Erik. Ignoring him, Erik twists around to crouch on his own seat, pulling himself halfway into the back to better assess the damage.

It’s definitely totaled, especially after the cops decided to rip the door off, but they’ve got to find a way to keep the smog out if they don’t want to slowly suffocate. Erik sucks in a breath through his teeth and raises his hand, palm up. At his command, the metal from the roof shudders into life, floating back up before welding itself messily to the jagged cuts around the side. It’s far from perfect, but it will have to do.

That job done, Erik turns his attention to the missing door. He can’t remove anything else from the car to try and repair it without creating a bigger mess, but there’s bound to be something in the rubble outside that will do the trick. Closing his eyes, he casts his powers out again, frowning as he sifts through the smaller hunks of metal—old discarded thermoses, stray bits of tinfoil and aluminum wrappers, a few sleek pieces of sheet metal. Finally, he feels something large and square and very promising underneath several layers of garbage. He grits his teeth, twining his metal fingers around it and with a sharp jerk, tugs it free. It’s an old recycling bin, if the symbol of the three white arrows circling the Earth on the side is anything to judge by, and Erik figures, if the shoe fits…

One side of the bin peels off from the others with a wrenching noise, and he brings it swiftly over to cover up the hole where his passenger side backseat door once was. The edges of the bin dig in, crunching quietly against the existing metal. Still not Erik’s first choice, but at least the noxious smell from outside is cut off. The car’s air filtering system should keep the worst of the smog off their lungs. That business settled, Erik flops back in his seat and faces Charles again. He’s surprised to see Charles is staring at him already, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open, and that he’s uncurled himself slightly from his protective little ball.

“You can control metal,” he says, deadpan. “How—?”

“Ohhhh, no,” Erik butts in, shaking his head firmly. “I definitely get to go first. Who are you and how the fuck did you crash through my roof and not die?”

“I told you, I was being chased,” Charles says, the corners of his mouth beginning to turn down in a frown. “I was in a ship headed towards Earth with my friends, the Oyemai, when we were attacked by D’Khantuun. The ship blew up, and the next thing I know I’m in some kind of glass pod and people are taking pictures of me like I’m some sort of specimen. No one spoke my language, but everyone was fighting and then someone started pulling out phasers, so I had to run.”

Erik’s brow furrows as he tries to take the information in. “That still doesn’t explain how you got into my car.”

“I jumped.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I. Jumped,” Charles says, putting a slight pause between each clearly enunciated word.

Erik’s mouth twitches in annoyance, but he pushes on. “No human could survive that fall. Wait, nobody could survive an _explosion_ from a spaceship, either. Is regeneration your secondary mutation?”

“Mutation?” Charles asks. “I… I guess I have a lot of mutations. Doesn’t everybody?”

“Not really,” Erik says with a laugh that borders on hysterical. “Most people have one, tops. Maybe two. That’s how I fixed the car, metallokenesis.”

Charles’ eyes narrow, and he bites his lip uncertainly, his head cocking to the side. It’s utterly adorable, a fact that Erik regrets noting the second the thought has formed because 1. _telepath_ 2\. possible fugitive, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, and  3. he’s still very, very sore about his car, which, by the way, he’d just gotten repainted on his last day off, thank you very much.

“I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing,” Charles says slowly.

Erik shakes his head, disbelieving. “How do you not know what I’m talking about? You _are_ a mutant, aren’t you? A telepath.”

Charles shrugs, just as lost as Erik. “I can read people’s minds, and sometimes control them if I concentrate hard enough. When my people were created, they were given low-level empathic abilities to help us when we were fighting the Dark Planet, but over the millennia that power enhanced. The last several hundred generations of Elements were considered telepathic by many species, including yours, and the Oyemai and Wopeo.”

“Your people?” Erik gapes. He’s way beyond disbelief at this point, wondering if he somehow fell asleep standing up while waiting for Agnes to come back at the Multipass Office and has now wandered into some kind of nightmare. “Elements?”

“I know I look human,” Charles says slowly, and he pushes off the car door to lean in earnestly, “and we’re very similar genetically, but my people, the Elements, were engineered hundreds of millions of years ago in order to save creation. We’re stronger than the average human, and with tougher skeletons and skin, designed to withstand attack from nearly anything. But I’m the last of my kind, and the Dark Planet has finally woken again, and _that’s_ why I’m running from the police. I don’t have time to be thrown in a prison and wait for people to listen. I need to meet my contact on Earth so we can retrieve the stones we need for the ritual which has to happen in three days at the very least.”

“Ritual?” Erik asks, his voice faint and croaky from his dry throat.

Charles smiles sympathetically. “I know it’s a lot to take in,” he says. “And you probably think I’m crazy. But you saw into my mind almost as much as I saw into yours. Do you honestly believe that I’m lying?”

Unable to hold Charles’ urgent gaze any longer, Erik looks down, swallowing hard. He rubs a hand roughly over his forehead as he thinks, trying to piece together the insanity of the situation. Some of Charles’ story makes sense—didn’t the news mention something about rogue D’Khantuun ships this morning?

Most of it, though, is hard to believe. Rituals? Elements? A genetically engineered species that Erik, who has been to some of the remotest parts of the galaxy, has never even heard of? Not to mention Erik has no idea what this “Dark Planet” is that Charles has mentioned several times now. This is insane. He should turn the car back on and fly right to the nearest police station to turn Charles in. Save his own skin, because undoubtedly the police are already on their way to his apartment to look for him. His employers at the base have probably been notified as well, no way will he be able to go into work tomorrow. Hell, he may even be a wanted criminal at this point. Charles is a complete stranger, and did Erik mention he _totalled his car literally the second Erik met him?_ He’s much more trouble than he’s worth.

And yet…

And yet.

Erik does believe him; Charles is right, he can’t not. Erik felt Charles’ panic in his mind, so viscerally real he could practically taste it on his tongue, he saw the explosion of the Oyemai ship with his own eyes and felt Charles’ despair at knowing his mission had failed before it had even really begun. For better or for worse, it seems Erik has been dragged into a battle for the universe. He can’t abandon Charles now.

Charles must see the change in Erik’s face because he lets out a quiet, relieved breath and leans the rest of the way forward, resting a hand lightly on Erik’s forearm. “Thank you, my friend,” he says, his smile absolutely radiant, and Erik thinks he must be leaking some of his happiness into the air because there is no other reason for a smile from someone he barely knows to make his stomach flop that way.

“I haven’t said I’ll help you yet,” Erik protests weakly, but Charles’ smile only widens.

“Of course,” he says. “I’m sorry for assuming. Will you help me find my contact?”

Erik’s shoulders slump in resignation. Might as well make it official.

“Yes,” he says.

As soon as the words leave his mouth, a quiet relieved noise escapes Charles, and he shifts again, sitting up on his knees and taking one of Erik’s hands between his own, squeezing it gently. Erik’s eyebrows creep heavenward, but other than that he’s powerless to move, completely captivated by the expression on Charles’ face—relief, gratitude, and determination mingling together, making his eyes soft around the edges.

“Thank you,” Charles says. “Truly. I know you weren’t planning on this, but I can’t express to you how important it is. And I’m sorry about your car.”

Erik shrugs a shoulder, his mouth feeling impossibly dry. “It’s fine,” he replies at the same time that his mind protests, _What the fuck, Lehnsherr?_ But Charles must not pick up on that because his smile remains in place. Feeling very off-kilter, he adds, “Every war has casualties, right?”

Charles shakes his head slightly. “Oh, we’re not going to war,” he says, brightly. “It won’t come to that. All we need to do is pick up four stones with my contact at the coordinates he has, bring them back here to Earth, and the problem should be stopped before it even really begins.”

Right. Simple, really, as long as they find a way to evade the police for the next seventy-two hours. But if Charles is some kind of genetically engineered super being, maybe Erik should have a bit more confidence. He opens his mouth to ask Charles just who this contact is when his comm link buzzes, making the both of them jump. Erik sighs.

“What is that?” Charles asks, looking curiously on as Erik leans over to wrangle the device out from underneath the seat.

“A comm link,” Erik grunts, calling the phone into his hand with his power. “To send messages and talk to people. My friend is messaging me. We were supposed to go out for drinks today. Guess I better tell her we need to reschedule.”

He clambers back up into a sitting position and flicks open the screen to check the message.

[ _roommate’s back and he’s royally pissed. GET HERE AND SAVE ME NOW, PLEASE, HE LOOKS LIKE HE’S READY TO CLAW THE KITCHEN APART I CANNOT HANDLE THE TESTOSTERONE_ ]

Feeling guilty, Erik chews his lip, trying to figure out the best way to respond. They’ve been forced to put this get-together off for weeks, Raven is not going to be pleased no matter how he says it.

“Is something the matter?” Charles asks.

“Not really,” Erik says, looking up to give Charles a reassuring twitch of a smile. “Just thinking. What’s the name of your contact, anyway? Hopefully they live close by and have a spare set of clothes. Unless you’d rather keep the bandages.”

Charles flushes to the very roots of his dark brown hair, looking bashfully away. “I’d almost forgotten,” he mutters. “Believe me, this would not be _my_ wardrobe choice for saving the universe.”

Erik shrugs. “Could be worse. At least they gave you _something_ after waking you from the dead _._ ”

“Maybe the Priest will have something,” Charles mutters, and Erik raises an eyebrow.

“Priest?”

“That’s the person I’m meant to be meeting. A Priest from the Order. His name is Logan Howlett.” Erik gives a great jerk, nearly dropping his phone. Charles eyes widen in alarm, and he leans forward over the armrest again intently, studying Erik’s face. “What is it?” he asks. “Are you alright?”

“I… I think I might, know him, actually,” Erik replies shakily. “That’s the name of my friend’s new roommate.”

Charles’ jaw drops. “You’re joking,” he breathes. “You know where he lives?”

Erik shrugs. “If it’s your guy, yeah. Of course. I can take you there as soon as it’s safe.”

“Safe?”

“We’d better wait a little longer for the dust to clear.” Charles head cocks in a question and Erik clarifies, “The police. Wait for them to stop chasing us. It’s metaphorical dust.”

“Ah,” Charles says, settling back against the door and stretching out his legs a little bit so their feet are almost brushing underneath the armrest. “We don’t have that term in my language.”

Erik sighs and lets himself relax a little bit further against the door which in turn pushes his feet further out. He can almost feel Charles’ body heat against his soles, though he could be imagining it. Either way, he feels strangely calm all of the sudden, although maybe that calm is relative to all the madness that has happened to him since he left the bank this afternoon. But Erik figures at this point, he’ll take what he can get.

“What is your language anyway?” he asks.

Charles smiles wryly, like he’s letting Erik in on a private joke. “The Priests call it the Divine language,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Things like that were what gave the Elements an inflated enough opinion of themselves that they locked themselves away for the past four thousand years. Give or take. We were built to be God-like but as soon as we started believing we actually _were_ Gods, that’s when the trouble started.”

Erik’s brow furrows in confusion. “But I mean… save the universe. That’s a pretty huge thing. You don’t seem very impressed by it.”

A flicker of something sorrowful passes over Charles’ features, turning down the edges of his red, red mouth and making his eyes go distant as he looks out the window behind Erik at nothing in particular. When he first crashed through Erik’s roof, Erik thought Charles couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old, max, but now he seems impossibly old beyond that, like he’s lived through every one of the four thousand years he mentioned, watching the slow but steady decline of his people. Perhaps he has. Erik would be none the wiser, after all.

“The Elements who came before me had nothing to worry about,” Charles says quietly. “The Dark Planet only wakes up every five thousand years, and that’s plenty of time to forget the reason why you were created and why other species are important. Now the danger has returned and I’m the only one to bear the burden. Forgive me if I seem a little bitter.”

He gaze falls back on Erik, just this side of flinty, and Erik feels a faint shiver creep up his spine. It’s surreal, how unassuming Charles can appear until you realize what he is; something so apparently powerful wrapped up in a five-and-a-half-foot package with floppy dark hair and the biggest, bluest eyes Erik has ever seen.

Belatedly realizing that he’s staring, Erik clears his throat and looks away, pretending to examine the nearest gaping hole in the wall of the building they’re hunkered down in with the same intensity even though he can barely see three feet through the fog. “We’ll give it a couple more minutes and then we’ll go,” he says gruffly.

“Okay,” Charles agrees, and they lapse into a slightly uncomfortable, awkward silence.

Reaching for his phone again with his powers, Erik calls the device back into his hand and finally sets about texting Raven back as a means to keep himself preoccupied.

[ _your roommate’s name is Logan Howlett right?_ ]

[ _WHERE ARE YOU. and yeah that’s him. why_ ]

[ _coming, coming. but good. don’t let him go anywhere_ ]

[ _he’s drinking and staring moodily at one of his old books, i don’t think he’s going anywhere anytime soon. don’t tell me you’ve developed a crush on him and plan on confessing your feelings today because i really don’t think he’s in the mood_ ]

Erik doesn’t deign to favor her with a response to that, floating his phone over to the dash and massaging his forehead with one hand. He’s not sure how he’s going to explain the damage on his car to his mechanic, or how he’s going to justify spending so many credits on repairs in the first place to himself. Erik hates spending money. It gives him hives.

“Could I look at it?” Charles asks, and Erik lowers his hand to find Charles peering over at his comm link on the dash curiously. “Your...comm link?” He says the word carefully, like he’s trying to pronounce a word he’s only ever read before. Erik supposes this isn’t far off from the truth, since he’d basically downloaded English from Erik’s brain.

“Yeah.” Seeing no harm in it, Erik floats the phone over to Charles and drops it gently in his hands. “Swipe the screen with your thumb to open the menu.”

Fascinated, Charles complies. The bright glow of the screen only accentuates the wonder on his face as the icons pop up. He jumps a little when it buzzes in his hand. “Oh, it vibrates. I think you have a message.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Erik says dismissively. It’s probably just Raven again. “Tap on the square that says _Plants vs. Zombies_.”

“Okay,” Charles says slowly, clearly skeptical, and Erik finds himself trying not to laugh. He taps on it and then jumps again when a blast of music blares out of the phone’s tiny speakers. “What in the world is this?”

“A very serious electronic stimulant,” Erik says gravely. He rotates himself around in his seat, searching out the pedals with his feet—with his ability he doesn’t actually _need_ to physically press them, but it generally makes anyone in the car with him feel more comfortable if he at least looks like he’s driving normally; not that Charles would know any different—and trips the ignition with his powers to start the engine. He hasn’t seen another patrol car pass by so they might as well go now. “Hit ‘tutorial’ and it’ll show you what to do. Don’t mess up, though, or the whole phone will explode and no one will be saving the universe.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Charles says, eyes narrowed, but his lips look like he’s fighting off a smile.

“Oh no,” Erik says, shifting gears and slowly beginning to nose the car out of the building, “I’d be much too frightened to make fun of someone as mighty as you.” It’s half a joke at best, since Charles has already inadvertently displayed how he can probably turn Erik’s brains into something equivalent to scrambled eggs, but Erik isn’t sure how to deal with the deep sadness Charles had shown when talking about his people. Resorting to getting Charles to crack a smile or laugh seems like his best bet.

“You’d better be,” Charles mutters, turning back to the phone, and the intro music of the game changes to the first level music as the tutorial starts. When Erik risks sneaking a sideways glance over at him, Charles is wearing a tiny grin.

The corners of his own lips twitch upwards despite himself, and Erik guns the engine so they take off, leaving nothing but a swirl of fog and a soft echo of the _Plants vs. Zombies_ theme song in their wake.

 

*

 

“Your liver is going to hate you.”

Logan grunts.

“Just because you can kill your liver and have it grow back good as new doesn’t mean you should abuse it.”

Logan grunts.

“Is it even priest-like to drink this much?”

Logan grunts.

“Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

Logan grunts.

“Does that mean yes or no?”

Logan grunts.

“I’m going to pretend it’s yes. So can I borrow your car next weekend and—”

“No,” Logan says sharply, because end of the world pending or not, he’s not about to let Raven get her greasy paws on his car. She ain’t bad, as far as roommates go, but he’s seen how she drives.

“So you _are_ still capable of regular speech,” Raven says triumphantly. She’s lounging on the top of the backrest of the couch, lying on her back just above where Logan rests wearily on his stomach down on the cushions like a normal person. “Sometimes I wonder.”

“Isn’t your boyfriend supposed to be picking you up,” Logan mutters. He reaches over for his half-empty tumbler on the coffee table and sits up far enough to take a gulp.

“Gross, Erik isn’t my boyfriend,” Raven answers tonelessly, not even offended. She picks her phone up off her flat belly and checks the screen. “He’s been telling me he’s on his way all morning, though. That asshole better not stand me up again.”

“Maybe he isn’t sure how to let you down gently,” Logan mutters, putting his head down again. He thought he was past the whole going-on-a-bender-out-of-depression thing, but the end of the world is pretty depressing.

That, and no one really seems to care. They’d sent out ships to survey the wreckage of the Oyemai ship and look for that miniscule sign of life the satellite sensors had detected and they’d _found the Element_ , but the president still seems to think one of his generals will come up with some kind of weapon to destroy the Dark Planet and save them all, never mind the goddamn _prophecy_ that says it’s impossible.

At least they’d revived the Element, quite successfully Logan will admit, but they’d done a fine job spooking the shit out of him. The Element had ran, clearly disorientated, and Logan had been sent packing before he could try to talk everyone else down from sending uniformed police after him to hunt him down like some kind of criminal. Now even if they _do_ manage to catch him again, Logan doesn’t have to guess to know he’ll never get a chance to see the Element again before it’s too late. All the government agencies will be having a field day with the poor kid, and keep him locked up safely behind miles and miles of red tape while they poke him with sharp objects and ask too many stupid questions instead of taking action. Earth is as good as doomed, and there’s nothing Logan can do about it.

Heaving a sigh, Logan shoves himself upright into a sitting position, pushing absently at the thick tome he’d been paging through earlier. The book details the entire prophecy of the Dark Planet, and Logan had been scanning furiously with vain hope to try and find some other way, some other passage with a secret, double meaning that would show an alternative way to save humanity. He hadn’t had any luck.

“You’re extra moody today,” Raven remarks from behind him. “Did you have a secret significant other you never told me about who just broke up with you? Or did you have a special service at your temple or whatever and someone spilled the sacred red wax?”

_Surprise, we’re all going to die soon_ , Logan wants to tell her. He doesn’t have the energy to be cruel right now, though. Odds are she won’t believe him either anyway, since Raven has always regarded his priesthood with polite but pointed ambivalence.

“Shut up and go grab me a beer,” he says instead, figuring he’s had enough hard liquor for now. “Get yourself one too and we’ll drink to my mood and your lack of a friend who wants to hang out with you.”

“Asshole,” Raven says, but swings off the back of the couch to her feet. “Erik and I were going to head to the bar anyway so I suppose this will do.”

“Cheers to second best,” Logan says, rolling his eyes, and that’s when someone knocks loudly on the door.

Logan is decidedly not in the mood for visitors so he ignores the noise, turning back to faceplant in the couch, but Raven shouts, “Coming!” and he hears her padding across the wooden floor towards the door. Groaning, Logan braces himself for even more unwanted human interaction. Distantly he supposes he should be savoring it while he can, but the events of the morning are weighing him down and he can’t bring himself to care much anymore if he’s wasting the last few hours of his life or not. It’s his life, damn it, he’ll do what he wants.

The door’s hinges give a squeak of protest as Raven swings it open. There’s two people outside. Logan can smell them just as Raven begins to speak, her voice haughty and annoyed. They both smell distinctly of sweat and adrenaline and the semi-toxic smog below the inhabitable areas, but one of them… one of them almost smells like…

He bolts upright and vaults the couch skidding down the hallway, praying that his nose isn’t failing him.

“I don’t know why I’m not surprised,” Raven says. “You dump your best friend because you find a hot piece of tail… somewhere. And you don’t even bother letting him change out of his weird bondage suit. Jesus, aren’t you freezing?”

“It’s not a bondage suit,” a deep, agitated voice says at the same time that a confused, British one says, “My name’s not Jesus.”

Logan rounds the corner and sees, just outside in the hallway, a tall, auburn-haired man with sharp and intimidating-looking features standing with his arms crossed and his expression dubious. And against all odds, at his side, is the Element. He’s still dressed in only the thermal bandages, a nearly-healed cut just above his elbow that he must have gotten running from the cops, but he’s _alive_.

“She knows that, Charles,” the tall one says, his expression shifting from annoyed to slightly amused.

“Oh,” the Element says. He turns to Raven and holds out his hand. “I’m Charles Xavier. I realize my appearance must be a little shocking, but I promise you, this was not my choice. Erik helped me out of a tricky situation and he said you could help. I understand you have a friend named Logan—”

“Howlett,” Logan breathes. He’s still not entirely sure what he’s seeing is real, but the Element looks up, past Raven and straight at him. His eyes go wide, his mouth falls open.

And then suddenly, he’s pushing Erik back behind him, his expression turning slightly panicked. He pulls Raven towards him too by the wrist, trying to force her out the door and behind him as well.

“You!” he says.

“Me?” Logan asks, lost.

“What?” Raven looks rapidly back and forth between them, struggling to free her wrist, but the Element is much stronger than her, and much more determined.

“He was in the room when they woke me up,” he says, practically snarling. “His mind is closed off to me I have no idea—”

Logan holds up his hands, the sleeves of his ceremonial robe which he has yet to change out of sliding down his forearms. He hasn’t the faintest idea how in the past hour the Element has learned to speak English when the last time all he seemed capable of was the Divine language, but he figures it must have something to do with his psychic abilities the Oyemai hinted at. Psychic abilities which apparently don’t work on him for whatever reason. With that option gone, Logan isn’t sure the best way to make the Element trust him, but he has to try.

“Look, kid,” he says slowly, “I wasn’t there to hurt ya. I know how it must have looked, but I promise, I’m a Priest of the Order. Mo kyla givo’mana.” _I’m here to help._

The words make Charles pause for a moment, long enough for Raven to break free, but distrust is still written all over his face, his eyes dark with it. “Dinoïné parsousan mana limoï De’oum.”

_Anyone can learn the Divine language._ It’s not exactly true, but it’s not exactly false either. The Order is extremely secretive and selective, it’s not like anyone can join, and outside the Priests and the Elements, the language is essentially dead. No one else speaks it; hell, no one else probably knows it exists. But Logan has to respect the Element for being so cautious. It’s a smart thing to be, in this day and age. Better that than dead, he thinks.

“Charles, what’s the matter?” Erik asks, struggling to get out from behind him, but Charles is adamant.

“Nothing’s the matter,” Logan insists.

He tosses a glare that could melt paint at Erik, but Erik seems largely unfazed, wrinkling his nose in distaste. Slowly, so as not to spook the Element, Logan begins to roll up his sleeves further. Charles watches the movement, still backing steadily away, but he seems interested despite himself now, not quite trusting his instincts to run. Erik, on the other hand, looks ready to leap over Charles and straight at Logan, but before he can, Logan rolls the sleeve up past his elbow almost to his shoulder and turns, showing his arm to Charles. There, barely visible in orange-y yellow ink are four sets of four squiggly lines. To anyone not connected with the order they would look like nothing.

But as soon as Charles sees them, he sags, relief flooding his face, tears even welling up in his eyes. Logan takes a step back and drops his hands, taken aback by the force of the Element’s emotions, especially when a minute ago he looked ready to murder him. Undeterred, the Element stumbles forward over the threshold and into the apartment. He looks like he’s about to hug Logan, and Logan takes another step back, not quite ready for that level of friendship yet.

“Mo chay ikset Me mubanté vigo Deno,” he says, reaching out and trapping Logan’s hand between his own. Logan doesn’t have the heart to shake him off. The poor kid’s been through a lot today.

“Hey!” a voice suddenly shouts from the doorway, and he looks up to see Raven’s friend charging through into the apartment, expression stormy.

Charles turns, dropping Logan’s hand and immediately reaching out to Erik instead, patting his arm placatingly as he stops up short in front of them. “It’s all right, Erik,” he says, looking up at him with a watery smile. “He’s the Priest I’m looking for. We’re going to be okay.”

“How do you know you can trust him, Charles, if you can’t read his mind?” Erik asks, tugging Charles infinitesimally closer and glaring at Logan. Logan doesn’t bother to suppress the urge to roll his eyes.

“Oh my god, Erik,” Raven says, slamming the door shut and stomping up to them. “What the fuck is going on? Read his mind? Your boyfriend’s a telepath?”

“He’s a lot more than that,” Logan says quickly. Sighing, he sweeps his arm out, gesturing down the hall and into the living room. “We can explain everything over another beer. But first, let’s get you some clothes.”

Flushing slightly, Charles glances up at Erik for a fraction of a second before looking down again, nodding. “That would be good, yeah.”

Logan looks briefly between the two of them, from Charles’ steadily reddening face to Erik’s slightly irate, slightly dumbfounded one and thinks, _Why the fuck did I even take this job in the first place_. Then, impatiently, he turns around and leads the way through to the living room, waving a hand at the couch for them to sit before heading off into his room to try and find something suitable for the Element.

 

*

 

Sebastian Shaw is having a good day.

This morning the stock for the Hellfire Energy Company went up ten points after their major competitor had to lay off ten thousand employees to avoid bankruptcy. At the board meeting before lunch, Emma Frost noticed his new suit; even though she hadn’t had very savory things to say about it, she _had_ noticed, and wasn’t that half the battle? And now, at just half-past one, Azazel has appeared in his office with a message from Marko that the Element had been destroyed and the stones and Aknot were on their way. Marko himself is heading to the ritual site to await him. Marko’s never liked dealing with the D’Khantuun himself—he thinks they’re too stupid to be bothered with. Personally, Shaw finds their vapid dedication to any and all things having to do with destruction refreshing.

He smiles to himself, gently swirling his seltzer water to make the cherry in it dance before taking a sip. The bubbles burst on his tongue, tickling it almost, and he sits back in his large wingback chair with a satisfied smile; the cat that got the cream.

“When will the D’Khantuun be here?” he asks.

“Fifteen minutes?” Azazel guesses.

Shaw’s smile widens. “Excellent. Shall we head to the warehouse?”

The warehouse is a 25-minute ride across town, and Shaw spends the entirety of it gazing out the window from his carefully arranged position in the backseat of the car with solemn dignity while Azazel drives. The warehouse is also a 2.5 second trip across town via Azazel’s handy teleportation powers, but Shaw likes to keep people waiting on him. It makes them impatient, and impatient people get sloppy. Plus, being chauffeured across the city in his luxury town car makes him feel more like a king out to survey his kingdom—or perhaps a feudal lord revisiting his conquered lands, yes, he likes that better—instead of just sitting in his office until it’s time for Azazel to teleport.

It also gives him the excuse of walking past Emma’s desk to give her the opportunity to notice him some more. Granted, this time she didn’t look up from her magazine and merely popped her bubblegum loudly when he told her he was heading out on business, but he’ll see her again anyway when he gets back.

Shaw had done careful research before he’d chosen this particular warehouse as a neutral meeting ground. It’s located on the very edges of the city, in the more run-down part of town so the building itself is just on the right side of desolate and crumbling. Cultivating a proper atmosphere is a very important part of shady business deals, and you can learn more about it in chapter eleven of his self-titled autobiography, available at all retail bookstores for 29.999 credits plus tax.

Azazel parks the car and gets out, moving around to the other side to open Shaw’s door for him. Shaw slides out, straightening his clothes carefully and walking confidently towards the dark entrance of the dilapidated warehouse, shined shoes crunching satisfyingly over broken glass and other small pieces of debris. Azazel flanks him, tail flicking as his beady eyes keep up a constant scan of their surroundings.

The inside of the warehouse is appropriately musty, a fine coat of dust upon rust covering nearly everything that isn’t cement. Dim, flickering light spills out of a room up ahead and Shaw can already hear the low grunting and snuffling of what is no doubt a fascinating conversation in D’Khantuuni.

When they enter the room, there are twelve D’Khantuun sentinels surrounding the tall stack of crates, long snouts sniffing suspiciously at the edges. Shaw clears his throat so they all whirl around at once, half of them cocking their bulky blasters threateningly but Shaw strides forward with a comfortable smile, unafraid. He eats phaser blasts for breakfast (along with a fully balanced and nutritional meal, see chapter four of his autobiography for more details).

“Exactly what you’ve asked for, gentlemen,” Shaw says with a flourish, spreading his arms wide. The D’Khantuun part ranks and shuffle aside as he walks through them, going up to the closest crate and popping it open with a twist of his wrist. Azazel sticks to him like glue, fingers twitching, at the ready to grab him by the arm and teleport them both out of there if something goes wrong.

Shaw ignores him, digging through the sawdust to pull out the weapon resting inside. It’s long, built like a rifle but hefty like an old-world uzi, with several different triggers along its wide, gaping barrel. He lugs it up onto one shoulder and spins around, facing the expectantly waiting aliens.

“Introducing the Shaw-O-Matic 2000,” he says in his best salesman pitch voice, “the only weapon you’ll ever need to carry with you again. It has it all. It comes equipped with five thousand rounds of pre-charged plasma shots, five hundred bullets, ten mini-missiles, and even a _net_.”

He demonstrates this by aiming at the nearest D’Khantuun and pulling the green trigger, body jerking with the kick as a large net explodes out of the gun’s barrel to tangle around the D’Khantuun’s thick, horny body. The other D’Khantuun honk appreciatively as their compatriot falls down with an outraged snort, thrashing wildly.

“The best feature, however,” Shaw continues, pulling back on another lever with a maniacal glint in his eye, “is our new heat-sensor technology that allows you to lock onto one specific source of heat, and then no matter which way you fire the weapon, it’ll only aim for your target. Observe.”

Shaw slings the barrel up higher, squinting at the small heat sensor screen that has popped up on top of the barrel. He spots a tiny source of heat over in one corner of the room, most likely a rat who has chosen the exact wrong time and place to exist, and clicks the button to lock on. Then he swings the gun around wildly and fires off a couple thousand rounds of plasma fire, laughing as the D’Khantuun throw themselves down to the ground out of misplaced fear of the exploding plasma shots going off every which way.

As advertised, however, none of the shots land anywhere except on the small heat source in the corner that is now nothing more than a smoking pile of ashes. Pleased with himself, Shaw lowers the weapon and beams at the cowering D’Khantuun with all of his shiny white teeth (for dental tips and recommendations, see chapter seven). “There you have it, boys. Or girls. I have no idea what any of you are but I’m not about to assume.”

“I don’t think they liked the joke,” Azazel mutters as the D’Khantuun leap back up to their feet with angry snarls, shaking their fists and clicking their teeth menacingly. Several of them are cocking their blasters again, and their leader marches forward to forcibly yank the Shaw-O-Matic 2000 out of Shaw’s hands.

Shaw lets him have it, leaning back against the open crate casually. “There, there, no harm done. I had to demonstrate it to you or how else would you know you’re getting what you paid for? And speaking of payment…” He wets his lips, gaze flickering across the room as his heart beats a little faster with anticipation. “Where are they?”

The D’Khantuun leader narrows his already squinty eyes and whistles once. At the signal, two more D’Khantuun emerge from the back room, lugging a heavy-looking chest between them. Shaw straightens, standing up fully and stepping forward as soon as the chest is dropped down onto the dirty cement floor, fingers flying to the latches as the D’Khantuun step back. He pops open the lid almost reverently, ignoring how Azazel is trying to peer over his shoulder without looking like it, and nearly holding his own breath as the lid moves away to reveal—

Nothing. The chest is empty.

“Where are the stones,” Shaw says blankly, before whipping his head up to fix a glare on the D’Khantuun leader. “Where are my stones,” he hisses, temper fraying, “that was our deal, you bring the stones to me!”

The D’Khantuun don’t seem to be concerned, half of them breaking open more of the weapons crates while the other half merely stare at Shaw and Azazel with stony indifference. Azazel’s tail flicks, hands inching towards the blades he keeps hidden inside his jacket, waiting for a cue.

“I need the stones or none of this is worth anything,” Shaw snarls, kicking at the empty, worthless chest to send it skidding sideways across the floor. “It’s like I have to do everything _myself_ around—” he cuts off, breathing heavily. He can feel pent-up energy sparking across his skin and along his fingertips, waiting to be unleashed. Instead he draws in one more deep breath, letting it out slowly as he draws one hand back through his hair (see chapter two for hair care secrets) to compose himself. “Myself. I’ll just get them myself. It will be fine.”

“Shall I take care of this?” Azazel asks in a low voice, jerking his chin towards the D’Khantuun holding the Shaw-O-Matics.

“No,” Shaw says crisply, brushing off invisible lint from himself and heading for the door, “I need you with me. They can keep them. We have some new arrangements to make, and this will handle itself, actually. By the way,” he calls over his shoulder to the D’Khantuun, “whatever you do, _don’t_ press the red buttons until you’ve read the manual.”

“Shall I call ahead?” Azazel asks, leaving the D’Khantuun behind and hurrying to catch up with Shaw. They make their way briskly back out of the warehouse, walking towards the waiting car.

“No, I’ll do it myself,” Shaw answers absently, and right as his hand touches the door latch, a loud explosion goes off inside the warehouse behind them, a wave of heat blasting over them and half the roof caving in with a large, ground shaking crash. That’s the true ticket of selecting the proper warehouse: it has to be flimsy enough to bury all evidence of foul play. “There,” Shaw says over the sound of crackling flames, “that’s better. I _told_ them not to push the buttons, though. Tsk, tsk.”

He climbs back into the backseat while Azazel moves around to get into the driver’s seat, and a few moments later the car rises up off the ground and takes off towards the city. For extra information about the mechanics of rigging up a few good explosives, you’ll have to read the entire book to find out. Shaw saved those bits for the epilogue.

 

*

 

Logan’s been droning on and on for the past five minutes about stones and Oyemai and secret ancient rituals, but Erik hasn’t been listening. Partly because he’s heard this song before from Charles who he decided almost instantly he likes infinitely better than Logan, but also partly because five minutes ago, Charles disappeared into Raven’s bathroom with a pair of Logan’s sweatpants, and a ratty old t-shirt that literally had permanent sweat stains under the arms to change and to wash up the cut on his arm. It was halfway healed already, but Charles said he wasn’t impervious to infection, and besides why _not_ clean it up?

Stupidly, Erik had almost offered to come in with him and help. For some reason, now that he’s committed to helping Charles, he can’t help but feel protective of him, even in his best friend’s apartment. But he hardly knows Logan. Charles apparently can’t read his mind, and Erik can’t bring himself to trust the furry little Priest yet, even if Charles says there’s nothing to worry about. So, while Raven has been absolutely enthralled with Logan’s tale, asking multiple questions and positing possible locations for the stones already, Erik has been staring determinedly down at the coffee table, taking the occasional sip from his cool beer, but mostly just waiting impatiently for Charles to return.

“Hang on a minute,” Raven says. Erik can practically hear her sorting through all the data that’s just been thrown at her. “You say all we need to save the universe from destruction by this Dark Planet is the stones and an Element. But why didn’t the Elements keep the stones on their home planet? Why doesn’t Charles have them now?”

“They _did_ keep them on their home planet,” Logan says, taking another puff from his putrid cigar. “For a couple thousand years at least. Then, as the Elements began to die out, the Oyemai decided they couldn’t be trusted with them. Their entire civilization was crumbling, so the Oyemai and some other factions of Priests stepped in and took them away for safekeeping. I guess they thought it was smart, too, splitting up the different pieces of the puzzle to minimize the chance of discovery.”

Raven frowns. “That makes sense, I suppose,” she says slowly. “Except it leaves us in a bit of a pickle now.”

“I’ll say,” Logan snorts mirthlessly.

“Okay. What did I miss?” a voice asks, and Erik’s head whips up.

Charles is standing on the threshold between the living room and the hallway, his bare feet and an inch or so of ankle poking out from underneath the hem of the too-big sweatpants, which he has cinched as tightly as possible around his waist. The t-shirt is too big too, so large on him it gapes open at the neck, exposing just a hint of collarbone, and ballooning out where it falls just past his hips like a circus tent. He looks like he could swim in the amount of fabric enveloping him just now, but it’s also slightly endearing.

Except the sweat stains. For a Priest in charge of a divine being, Logan really didn’t seem to care that much about giving him clothes that _aren’t_ disgusting.

“Not much,” Erik says quickly, scooting over to give room for Charles to sit down next to him on the couch. “Just catching Raven up.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Charles,” Raven says. She sticks out a hand and they shake over Erik’s lap. “Sorry I thought you were… Well. I’m not sure _what_ I thought you were, but it certainly wasn’t ‘genetically engineered super-human sent to save mankind and all of the universe.’”

Charles laughs abashedly. “Most people don’t,” he says. “Thank you for the clothes. Could I trouble you for a glass of water? I’m very thirsty.”

“No problem,” Raven says, standing and heading towards the kitchen in the corner. “Are you hungry too? I haven’t been shopping in a while, but there’s some instant stuff. It’s pretty good.”

“Yes, please, anything you have,” Charles says gratefully. He settles against the arm of the couch, one leg crooked up underneath him, and the other dangling over the side, the better to see Logan, who sits in the chair kitty-corner to them, still taking long, laconic draws from his cigar. He watches him for a moment before saying, “I’ll be ready to go in a little bit. I just need some time to think.”

“Where are we going?” Erik asks.

Charles turns to him, his expression going soft and fond. “Erik, that’s very, very kind of you. But I’ve gotten you in enough trouble already, crashing your car and getting you involved with the police. This could end up being very dangerous if the D’Khantuun find out I’m alive. I don’t want you to get hurt any more than you have been.”

“I don’t care,” Erik finds himself saying stupidly. He squashes the irrational urge to puff out his chest like some sort of territorial bird of paradise. “Besides, the police already know my name, and they know I’m with you. I figure I’m a marked man already, might as well see this thing through to the end. Finish what I started.”

“You didn’t start this,” Charles says, but he’s smiling again, and he rests a hand briefly on Erik’s knee, the touch burning through to his skin. “But thank you. If you really, _really_ want to come, I’m not going to stop you.”

“It sounds to me like you’re going to need all the help you can get anyway,” Raven calls from the kitchen. “I’m coming, too. No way would I miss out on seeing how this goes.”

Logan actually growls audibly from his place in the chair. Leaning forward, he snuffs out his cigar on the ashtray on the coffee table, leveling an unimpressed gaze at Erik from underneath his bushy eyebrows.

“This isn’t going to be all fun and games,” he says through gritted teeth. “You understand that, right?”

“Of course they do, Logan,” Charles says, frowning at him. “You’ve told them everything. They know what they’re getting into. I, for one, am grateful for the help.”

“Thank you,” Raven says.

Something in the kitchen beeps in notification, drawing Charles’ attention, and he smiles as he watches Raven glide back into the living room, a glass of water in one hand, and a plate of roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli in the other. He reaches out and takes both from her, taking a long gulp from the glass before setting it down to stare at the food.

“Oh shit, silverware,” Raven says. “Erik?”

Erik’s already moving, reaching out with his powers for the drawer in the kitchen and sliding it gently open. He picks up a knife and a fork and floats them gently into the living room, soaring over the back of the couch. Delightedly, Charles plucks them out of the air and immediately attacks the potatoes, practically inhaling them. He must be absolutely starving. Distantly, Erik realizes he could eat something, too. His stomach gives a small growl, and he gets up off the couch to steal an almost unhealthily freckled banana from the bowl on Raven’s counter. Better than nothing.

He walks back into the living room just as Charles resurfaces from his plate, taking another long swig of water before settling back against the couch with a sigh. “God, that’s delicious,” he says. “What are those?”

“Potatoes,” Raven says, grinning. “Those are mashed into a paste, but normally they grow in the ground like roots. No potatoes where you come from?”

Charles shakes his head. “No. There’s some root vegetables, but I’ve never had these before. It’s worth saving the universe just for them.”

“Great,” Logan says impatiently. “Now that you’ve found an important reason to save all of existence, why don’t you share with us where the stones are?”

Charles’ face falls, abashed, and immediately Erik perks up from where he’s slouched back on the couch, frowning. After all he’s been through today, Charles doesn’t deserve to be spoken to that way. He’s wearing the furry little creature’s soiled rags, for God’s sake, the least Logan can do is cut him some slack.

“We have almost three days before we need to do the ritual,” Erik snaps. “He was nearly dead this morning. Let him eat.”

“The stones are safe,” Charles says. “I promise. I have a coordinates to meet our next contact, she’ll be ready for us. I just need to see a star map and I’ll be able to point it out.”

Logan grunts, heaving himself off his chair. “Should have a star map lying around somewhere,” he says. Then he disappears down the hallway.

Looking relieved, Charles picks up his silverware and begins an assault on the chicken, humming appreciatively as he pops it into his mouth and the flavor hits his tongue. Erik smiles, and seeing that, Charles does too, the corners of his lips quirking up, though they stay politely closed. He cuts another piece and frowns down at his plate for a moment, thinking, before dipping it in the mashed potatoes and taking a bite. Instantly, his eyes widen with excitement, and he makes a happy noise in the back of his throat.

Erik laughs. “I take it you don’t have chicken either?”

“No,” Charles says, shaking his head vigorously. He quickly cuts another piece and slathers it with potatoes again, holding it out for Erik. “Eat it!” he insists. “It’s amazing.”

The offer, along with the forcefulness of it takes Erik aback for a moment, and he sits back a little more against the cushions. He can practically feel the change in the air next to him as Raven pauses, and even though he can’t see her, he’s sure her eyebrows are creeping heavenward. Earlier, when Logan had disappeared to look for clothing, Erik had tried to convince Raven that he and Charles were not dating or affiliated in any way physically. In the end she’d seemed convinced, especially after Logan’s explanations of the Elements and how he’d know about the Oyemai crash and Charles’ revival. Now he can feel all their progress on that front flying out the window.

Charles waves the food at him insistently again, either not picking up on the change in the room, or choosing to ignore it. Probably most of their customs and social rules confuse him, and he has no idea that what he’s doing could be misconstrued as suggestive. Erik also realizes abruptly that he’s not necessarily averse to following Charles’ lead and relaxing a little bit. He’s actually, in the space of a few hours, become used to having Charles around, giving him easy smiles, getting up in his space just enough that it would be odd for new acquaintances. It’s not odd with Charles, though, somehow. Erik’s finding he quite likes it.

In fact, he quite likes almost everything associated with Charles, except that maybe, if something goes wrong, they all won’t exist in a few days. But still, Erik can’t help putting his faith in Charles. What Erik wouldn’t give to learn about Charles’ past—how he was brought up, and how he could have turned out so differently from the other Elements who apparently were all too happy to let their power run away with them. Charles, though, seems almost wary of his task, and not at all pleased that he’s the one that has to do it.

Erik opens his mouth, and catches the food off the fork, chewing it slowly. He nods, humming. “It’s good,” he says, and Charles grins brilliantly.

“Isn’t it? Here, Raven, you have some, too.”

Raven holds up her hands, smiling wryly. “I’ve had it, Charles, thanks. You’re right. It’s great. That’s your lunch, you enjoy it.”

Charles shrugs. “If you insist.”

He goes back to happily stuffing his face, Erik somehow unable to tear his gaze away, until Logan shuffles back into the room, star map in tow. He tosses it onto the coffee table unceremoniously, narrowly missing knocking over Charles' water. The map is made of heavy laminated paper and contains coordinates for most of the Milky Way Galaxy, up until the outer reaches which are uninhabited anyway. It's so big it doesn't quite fit on the table, but as it begins to slide off, Charles lunges forward and pins it with his palm, nearly dislodging his plate from his lap.

Erik reaches out and grabs it before it can clatter to the floor and make a mess, his hands brushing the insides of Charles' thighs. Just as soon as he realizes what he's done, he jerks back, an apology on his lips, but Charles hasn't seemed to notice. He's staring down at the star chart intently, his lips moving as his eyes flash over each small cluster of solar systems, naming them under his breath, looking for one in particular. His gaze travels up the page and slightly to the right before he finds it.

"There," he says, pointing. "The planet Fhloston."

"In the Angel constellation?" Raven asks. "The one they're having that radio competition for? "

"Fhloston Paradise," Erik adds. "My mom told me about it this morning. The stones are going to be there?"

Charles nods. "Should be. Or at least, my contact is there and she'll know where to find them."

"Who's your contact?" Raven asks.

"I'm told she's a Diva. A singer. Her name is Irene Adler, so I’ve been told but there aren’t many—what?"

Raven practically falls off her side of the couch, and Charles gives her a startled look.

"You're shitting me."

"I... No, I'm not?" Charles says, sounding lost. He looks to Erik, obviously hoping for some kind of explanation.

“Not literally,” Erik hastens to explain, and Charles looks relieved. “It’s an expression.”

“Irene Adler, from the Andromeda Galaxy?” Raven says with a large gesture, looking between them all impatiently. Logan shrugs, Charles still looks wary, and Erik shakes his head. “Ugh, this is why I need more girl friends, you guys are all a bunch of uncultured swines.”

“I take it that is not a literal term either,” Charles muses.

“No,” Erik agrees.

“She’s only the most famous singer of our generation,” Raven continues, jumping up to her feet, “which no _wonder_ tickets to Fhloston Paradise have been impossible to get a hold of, if she’s performing on the cruise. They usually hold her concerts on refurbished asteroids, and the tickets always sell out in the first two _seconds_ they go online. Of course, you can always find them later for twenty times the original price. She’s _amazing_. Or,” she amends wistfully, “so I’ve heard. I’ve never seen her live, obviously.”

“Kind of a funny place to hide the stones, if she’s such a huge public figure,” Erik says skeptically.

“Who would ever connect elemental stones to a famous singer, though?” Raven reasons. “It would be a little more obvious to hide them with a Priest like Logan or something.”

“True,” Erik concedes, “but how are we ever going to be able to get close enough to meet Adler? She’s probably already on Fhloston, which is impossible to get to unless you’ve got tickets, and she’s probably got an entire security detail on her 24/7 if she’s really that famous.”

“She _is_ that famous,” Raven says at once, but then deflates, sinking back down onto the couch. “You’re right, though. The tickets for Fhloston are all sold out, and there’s like a one in four hundred million chance one of us will win the radio competition.”

“We can’t just give up,” Charles points out, though he sounds grim.

“Does your order have any kind of contacts we can use?” Raven asks, looking to Logan, who’s remained silent and contemplating throughout the conversation. “Any strings you can pull, or something?”

Logan shakes his head, equally grim. “’Fraid not. I could try talking to President Bishop again, but that’ll only slow us down when they start asking too many questions, or want to start running a thousand tests on Chuck here.” He nods to Charles, and Erik feels his hackles start to rise just thinking about it. Experimentation on mutants has been a thing of the past for only a hundred years now, relatively short in the grand scheme of things, so Erik feels hardwired not to trust anything to do with testing. “Besides, I don’t think they really believed me anyway when I tried explaining how Charles is our only shot at defeating the Dark Planet. They all think they’ll be able to develop some kind of weapon instead. We’re on our own here.”

“Perhaps we could ask Radio Competition?” Charles suggests, and the way he says it makes it sound like he thinks it’s one person. Erik struggles not to find this endearing too. “If we explain the importance of our mission, surely they would give us the tickets?”

“I don’t think it would work like that, Charles,” Raven says gently. “The radio station is run by cold-blooded corporate bastards who would probably sell their own mothers for profit.”

“Is not the selling of other humans illegal?” Charles asks, alarmed. “I thought it was abolished centuries ago.”

“The evils of capitalism are still alive today,” Raven informs him solemnly.

“She’s being facetious, kid,” Logan says, rolling his eyes, “but the point is, she’s right, they ain’t gonna just give us the tickets.”

“The English language is very confusing,” Charles mutters.

“Wait a moment,” Erik says slowly, struck by an idea. Charles looks back over to him at once. “The tickets to Fhloston are mainly tickets to get on a ship _to_ Fhloston, aren’t they? Once you’re there you’re pretty much admitted onto the cruise. So all we really have to do is _get_ there.”

“We could totally just take your ship!” Raven says, catching on at once.

“You’re a pilot?” Charles asks, delighted, and Erik tries not to preen.

“One of the best,” he says smugly, because he can’t help himself. “The only problem is, my ship isn’t exactly _my_ ship. It’s technically the military’s ship, so we’d have to...borrow it.”

“This is awesome,” Raven says with a laugh. “We’re going to steal a ship.”

“Isn’t it standard for military ships to need two pilots to fly?” Logan asks, lifting an eyebrow. “You can’t fly it alone, and it’s not like you’re going to be able to steal your own ship right out from underneath your copilot’s nose. What’re they gonna think?”

“Hopefully,” Erik says, digging his phone out of his pocket, “she’ll want to help us.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

“Let me get this straight,” Moira MacTaggert says an hour and a half later, calm and unblinking as she stares at Erik from where she sits across the table from him, “you want me to use my day off to help you break into the hanger, steal our own ship, and pilot it to Fhloston Paradise.”

“Didn’t you hear the bit about also preventing the end of the world?” Erik snaps, narrowing his eyes at her.

All five of them are crammed into a booth in the back of The Salty Dog, Erik squeezed into one one corner with Charles beside him and Logan sitting on the edge of one bench, while Moira and Raven sit together on the other side. The Salty Dog is where Erik and Raven usually take themselves to sit at the bar and drink and generally be salty together, Erik bitching about work and Raven bitching about the patriarchy and shitty dates she’s been on in the past couple weeks, but a booth had seemed more feasible since what they’re discussing this time isn’t exactly fit for being interrupted by drunk people or a nosey bartender. It’s barely evening and the place is already hopping, full of patrons and several tables cheering loudly as they watch some kind of organized sports game up on the big holovid at the other end of the room.

Raven and Charles are sharing a plate of fries, though by the way Charles is working through them it’s less sharing and more of Raven watching in fascination as Charles demolishes them and snagging one here and there when she remembers. The ketchup bottle had been a big hit with Charles, and for the past twenty minutes Erik has desperately been resisting the urge to reach over and swipe his thumb across the corner of Charles’ mouth to clean off the tiny spot of ketchup there. Logan’s nursing a beer, sipping it slowly and sullenly as he’d gotten even more taciturn than usual from the moment Moira showed up to meet them, so it’d fallen to Erik to do most of the talking while Moira listened to the entire story without once changing her unimpressed expression.

Presently, Moira rolls her eyes. “Yes, yes, I heard it all. I believe you, too, which is saying something. If this were coming from anyone else I’d be wondering which of the latest designer drugs they’re on.”

“How gratifying,” Erik says dryly.

“It is,” Moira says frankly. “But alright, fine, I’ll help you break nineteen laws. I was having a boring day anyway. When do we leave?”

“You never told me your copilot was this awesome,” Raven says to Erik accusingly.

“I’m just amazed Erik actually has friends,” Moira replies, and Erik can already feel a headache starting to form just by the way they smirk at each other. He always suspected introducing Moira and Raven to each other would be akin to Frankenstein introducing lightning to the stitched-together corpse of his monster, and this only proves it. The things he’ll do to save the world, he thinks sourly.

The thing is, though, Erik has always found Moira more than tolerable, even for a baseline human. She’s a fantastic pilot, utterly competent at her job, and her cool level-headedness has made her an ideal partner from the start. Her sharp wit and acerbic tongue are more than enough of a match for Erik’s, which is why they’ve always gotten along: she can take anything Erik throws at her and dish it right back at him in equal measure, which is an important quality to have since even he will admit he tends to deal out a lot of bullshit.

“Thank you so much for your assistance,” Charles says to Moira, and at least Erik has the pleasure of watching Moira falter a little in the face of such pure, genuine and wide-eyed sincerity.

“Of course,” she says, recovering enough to step on Erik’s foot underneath the table for the way he’s grinning at her, “I’m happy to.” There’s a slight pause before she adds, “Though how we’re going to get onto the base still remains a problem.”

“Maybe it would be best to wait until nighttime?” Raven asks. “Will fewer people be there?”

Moria shrugs, considering. “Usually. Not by much, but yeah, it would certainly be easier than waltzing in right now.”

“We could go when the midday shift and the night shift switch,” Erik says, excitement starting to creep up his spine. “That’s at ten. We’ll be just part of the crowd.”

Moira frowns, still not entirely convinced. “It’ll still be about five thousand to five if we get caught,” she says. “Erik, you’d be able to handle anything metal, but—”

“I can divert people’s attention,” Charles says suddenly around a mouthful of fries. He swallows and taps his temple with his fingers. “If I concentrate hard enough I should be able to do a whole hallway full of people at once, if need be.”

“And I can shape shift,” Raven says. “If I saw a picture of one of your commanding officers, I could go always transform into them if the need arises.”

“And if worst comes to worst…” Logan adds, leaving the sentence unfinished as three long, sharp metal claws come sliding out between his knuckles.

They slide back into his arm with a quiet _snickt_ before anyone else can see, but that’s definitely good to know. Erik wondered why something about Logan had seemed off—that explains it.

Across the table, Erik can see Moira working through the plan they’ve laid before her, considering every possible scenario, and he can’t really blame her. It’s a long shot, Erik knows, and almost unspeakably risky, but it’s also their only option if they want to get to Fhloston by tomorrow. According to the Fhloston Paradise website, that’s when the Diva will perform her concert, and they have no idea how to reach her otherwise. If they want to get the stones, they need to get to Fhloston, and if they want to get to Fhloston they need this ship. After a moment, Moira nods slowly.

“That’s a good plan,” she says. “Raven and Charles, you can borrow some old flight suits. That should be nondescript enough that most people won’t bother you. As for the rest, as long as we don’t stop to chat we _should_ be able to get through without being caught.”

Charles sighs, tipping his head back against the plush cushion of the booth, the tension easing visibly from his shoulders, which are still swamped underneath Logan’s t-shirt. If all of this is challenging and scary for the rest of them, every new obstacle must be excruciatingly stressful for Charles. It must have been a terrible thing, growing up knowing the entire weight of the universe rested on his shoulders, and to find himself in a strange land and alone just when he needs help the most. The thought sends a spike of sadness abruptly through Erik, and he reaches out to pat Charles’ leg awkwardly at the same time that he sends a forceful bundle of _It’s okay we’ll make it through this_ at him.

It must have been a little too forceful, because Charles jumps a little and his eyes fly open in surprise. But when he turns his head to face Erik, they instantly soften, and a smile jerks up the corner of his mouth.

 _Thank you_ , _my friend,_ he sends, the words overlap in Erik’s mind with an actual emotional sense of gratitude that flares a deep, warm purple. Out loud he adds, “This morning I had nothing, almost not even a pulse, and when I woke up I thought I’d never be able to complete my mission. But now I have hope again thanks to you.” He looks out across the table at the rest of them and smiles. “How will I ever be able to repay you?”

“By saving our skins, as I understand,” Moira says, but she’s trying not to smile as well, as powerless in the face of Charles’ earnestness as the rest of them.

“Don’t get too excited, bub,” Logan says helpfully. Erik resists the impulse to magnetize him to the wall to make him shut up. “We ain’t on the ship yet.”

“But we’ll get there, for sure,” Raven butts in, shooting Logan a look that clearly tells him to keep his pessimistic comments to himself.

“Well,” Charles says gently, “thanks in advance, anyway.”

There’s a short pause wherein they all begin to process the fact that they’ve just decided to break into a government building and steal government property. Raven sneaks a fry from the plate and shoves it into her mouth, her eyes going distant as she chews. As per usual, Logan seems to have checked out now that the important bits of conversation are out of the way, and Moira is staring off in the direction of the holovid in the corner, though she doesn’t quite seem to be looking at it either.

Charles looks down at the plate of fries, obviously thinking about snagging another one, and Erik, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer, lifts his hand tenuously into the air.

“You’ve got something…“ he says vaguely, pointing to the corner of Charles’ mouth.

“Some what?” Charles asks. He rubs the side of his cheek, close to his mouth, but not quite getting the ketchup.

“No,” Erik says. He raises his hand a little closer to Charles’ face, smiling jerkily to signify that he means no harm, and swipes his thumb at the corner of Charles’ lips.

He gets the ketchup droplet. But more importantly, Charles leans into the touch until Erik is literally cupping his cheek, his brow furrowed slightly in question as he looks up at him.

“Ketchup,” Erik mutters gruffly.

Charles’ brow smooths out and he smiles sheepishly but doesn’t withdraw, and gradually Erik becomes aware of a _presence_ in the back of his mind, vast beyond his tiny barely-fourth-dimensional comprehension and powerful enough to crush him with barely a thought, though Erik can also sense it is purely benign. He doesn’t have to ask to know it’s Charles, and Erik is suddenly struck by how looking at Charles in front of him is much like seeing the very tip of an iceberg: there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye, and right now Erik is being studied by the part of Charles that usually lies hidden beneath the waves.

He holds still and lets Charles look, not worried about Charles actually prying. Time might as well stop mattering for the both of them, their companions at the table and all the noise of the rest of the bar fading away, until for all Erik knows they’re the only two beings left in the world, in the whole universe.

 _Erik_ , Charles says silently, wonderingly, and Erik doesn’t know if Charles actually means for him to hear anyway, because then the presence carefully withdraws and their surroundings come back to him, and Erik is left with a small tingling sensation across the surface of every nerve. It isn’t bad.

“—get you something nicer to wear, too, Charles,” Raven is saying, and it’s like she hasn’t even noticed how long Erik and Charles have been staring at each other. Abruptly Erik realizes he isn’t even touching Charles anymore, both hands resting idly on the table. “Logan’s spare workout clothes don’t exactly scream ‘Savior of the World.’”

“Maybe I could have a cape?” Charles asks, sounding a little too hopeful to be entirely joking.

“A cape?” Raven wrinkles her nose. “Did you and Erik talk about fashion at some point, because that reminds me of the one time Erik had—”

“No, we’re not going there today,” Erik interjects quickly.

“I would love to visit there,” Charles says, sounding fascinated. When Erik whips his head sideways to look at him, Charles gives him a soft, private smile, eyes dancing with amusement. Erik can’t help it; he smiles ruefully back.

“I don’t know about ‘Savior of the World,’” Moira says, eyeing Charles critically, “but I think my extra flight suit that would probably fit you well enough. It’ll be better than old sweats, at least, and make you look a little more polished. Professional.”

“Professional,” Charles tries the word out, sounding impressed.

“Like you know what you’re doing, bub,” Logan says, and Erik sorely wishes he were sitting next to him if only to be able to elbow him in the ribs.

Charles puffs out a breath, blowing his floppy bangs off his forehead. “I know what I’m supposed to do,” he says calmly, but like before there’s an underlying tension to his words.

“No one has ever said you don’t,” Logan says, though his tone is surprisingly kind, so Erik is somewhat mollified. “You’ve let us know plenty enough, but I don’t think it’s us you’re trying to convince.”

A silence settles across the table and Charles looks down at the now empty plate of fries, his brow slightly furrowed. The mood in the booth suddenly becomes uncomfortable. It’s obvious Charles doesn’t quite know how to respond about being caught in his insecurities, and Raven quickly jumps in to divert attention off of his sudden mood swing.

“So,” she says. “Why don’t you two go with Moira and pick up that flight suit. Logan and I will head home and wait for you. We can crash at my place until later and then all head to the hangar together tonight?”

Moira nods. “That sounds good to me,” she says as she scoots sideways out of the booth. “I assume you don’t have your car anymore, Erik, after what happened.”

“No,” Erik sighs. “We parked it somewhere it hopefully wouldn’t get found or stolen. Raven drove us.”

“I’ll drive, then,” Moira says, nodding.

Taking the cue, Erik begins to scoot out of the booth as well, tossing a quick glance over to make sure Charles is following. He is, though he still seems lost in thought. Erik decides to leave Charles to it for the time being; he’s never been one for big heart-to-heart discussions, and although Charles looks like he might need one eventually, he’s also been through enough stress for one day. In fact, Erik is a little surprised he’s still on his feet. He must be exhausted, even though it’s hardly even dinner time. They won’t need to get ready for several hours; Erik hopes he’s able to relax just a little before they have to break onto the hangar, he’ll be no use half-awake.

Moira leads them wordlessly out the door and to the garage where her car is parked. It’s a small eco-friendly thing with only two seats, but somehow Erik, with the longest legs of any of them, ends up smashed in the middle, one foot in each footwell and his elbows tucked into his sides. There’s no seat belt, but Moira is a good driver and her apartment is only a few minutes away. Erik sinks his power gently into the metal of the frame anyway just as a precaution, but he should be fine.

The radio comes on as Moira flips the ignition, and quiet music begins to fill the car. Erik’s never heard the song before, but that isn’t very surprising as Erik doesn’t really listen to the radio, preferring to find his music through other, less mainstream venues. It’s not bad music, though—the singer has a pretty, lilting voice, and the melody is catchy enough—and as they glide down to the parking garage’s exit and out into traffic, it’s a nice way to fill the silence. He feels a slight jostle at his side and glances over surreptitiously at Charles. He finds him staring out the window at the passing scenery, a small smile on his face, his shoulders moving slightly in time to the beat. He must realize Erik is looking at him though, because he turns and meets his gaze, his smile widening.

“I like this,” he says. “What is it?”

Erik shrugs. “Moira?”

“The music? She’s called Liliana,” Moira explains, smiling knowingly at Charles and glancing briefly at him, her eyebrow raised. “Good, isn’t she?”

“She is,” Charles replies enthusiastically.

“When all this is over, we’ll get you your own comm link. You can hold all the music you want on it,” Moira says. “I already have some of her albums. You can download them too.”

“I’d like that,” Charles says, although something in his eyes have lost a bit of their shine and his smile now seems a little forced to Erik. “The Oyemai had beautiful music, but I couldn’t hear all their pitches so some of it was lost on me, but what I could hear I enjoyed.”

“Did you live with the Oyemai for a long time?” Erik asks cautiously, hoping it isn’t a misstep and won’t upset Charles.

Charles nods pensively, looking out the windshield and chewing on his bottom lip. “Since I was ten,” he says. “Before that we moved around a lot and were never in one place for very long. But after a while, especially when my mother got sick, it was too dangerous. The Oyemai were one of the races to built the Elements, we’ve always been very close with them.”

“I’ve never met an Oyemai before,” Moira says.

“They’re wonderful,” Charles says at once. “They’re very peaceful and accepting, and they have some of the best artists I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve never met an Oyemai I didn’t like.”

“I get the feeling you’ve never met _anyone_ you didn’t like,” Erik says with a grin.

He feels an elbow dig gently into his ribs, and his grin widens. “ _Some_ people,” Charles says, his tone gently teasing. “People who use too many metaphorical phrases and have horrible taste in car colors.”

Erik’s face falls. “What?”

“Okay!” Moira says a little too loudly. “Let’s save the discussion on the pros and cons of magenta for when I don’t have to hear them.”

Erik settles into a dignified silence while Charles, looking far too pleased with himself, turns back to look out the window for the remainder of the drive.

 

*

 

Moira’s bathroom is smaller than Raven’s, barely more than a closet with a toilet and a shower that slides down from the wall when you press a button, which had caught Charles’ interest immediately when Moira pointed it out, but he figured now was probably not the time to go poking around trying out Earth technology. They are on a deadline, after all. So instead of touching, he stares at the little blue button with the humanoid figure standing underneath a spray of water while he pulls on the outfit Moira had handed to him before she shut the bathroom door.

The trousers are black and made of a stretchy, form-fitting material. Although he and Moira aren’t exactly the same size, they fit almost perfectly, especially compared to Logan’s old sweatpants, which had been too big in the waist and too short in the leg. The suit pants he has to roll up into cuffs at the bottom just once, but other than that, he finds them surprisingly comfortable. There’s a belt, too, that lets him cinch the waist to the correct size, which isn’t much of an adjustment from where Moira’d placed them at, so they don’t feel like they’re going to fall down any time soon, and apparently the pants get tucked into boots anyway, so no one will notice their length.

Bottoms on, Charles moves on to the top part of the outfit, which comes in two pieces: a short-sleeved grey undershirt that goes underneath a dark blue jacket with a square collar marked with four silver bars. There’s some kind of fastener on the right side of the jacket going down into a perfect V that Charles doesn’t recognize and a button at the top. Somehow doing just the button seems wrong, so after Charles pulls on the shirt and tucks it into the trousers, he pulls on the jacket and leaves it open for now. The jacket is form-fitting as well, the fabric hugging tightly to his shoulders without feeling like it’s suffocating him. All told, it’s a vast improvement from Logan’s old workout clothes.

All dressed except for the boots, Charles turns and examines himself in the mirror on the back of the door. He’s surprised by how much he enjoys what he sees. For most of his life he’d dressed in long tunics that went over close-fitting trousers and belted at the waist. Elemental fashion had been based on Priest’s robes for centuries–or perhaps vice versa–and without a real culture anymore except what his parents had taught him, Charles hadn’t had the ability to create a style of his own. It hadn’t really seemed important at the time, anyway.

Now, though, Charles definitely can see himself becoming very vain after all this is over. He turns to the side, admiring the way the shiny black strip of fabric down the center of the leg makes his legs look just a little bit longer, and how the belt sweeps low across his hips. The top, too, looks good on him. Charles isn’t very muscular—the Oyemai used to call him scrawny—but somehow the jacket makes his shoulders look broader than they have before, and the shirt clings to him nicely. He looks sturdier. More impressive, certainly, than he had in Logan’s clothing.

And as he looks, he finds himself wondering if maybe Erik will like the outfit as well. The thought makes him pause, biting his lip, and he looks at himself a little bit more closely, facing front to smooth the jacket down, adjust the shoulders, make sure the trousers are cinched the way they should be. When he looks back up, he studies his face a little bit longer than he normally would.

For some reason, he feels like he should look different somehow. He certainly _feels_ different; thinking about Erik make something deep in Charles’ chest feel like it’s squirming, trying to get out, but not in a necessarily unpleasant way, more in a way that makes him notice how set-apart Erik is from everyone else he’s met here. Not that he doesn’t like Raven and Moira, and even Logan in his own way. Erik is just… there’s something more about him. Something about his mind, that feels more intimate than the others, and something about the way he’s fitted himself seamlessly into Charles’ life without question or complaint that makes Charles’ insides feel warm and soft.

He doesn’t believe in destiny, not really, even with the rhetoric that’s been thrown at him his whole life. But if he has lucky stars, Charles silently thanks them as he looks at himself smiling slightly in the mirror. He could have chosen worse people’s car roofs to fall through than Erik’s.

Satisfied that he looks okay, and honestly, feeling much better now that he knows he isn’t going to trip over his own pant legs, Charles gives his hair one run-through with his fingers and exits into the living room. Erik and Moira are sitting on the couch, speaking in low voices, but as soon as they see him enter, they both turn to greet him. Moira gives him an appreciative once-over, nodding.

“Looks good,” she says. “You’ll fit in perfectly. No one will bat an eye.”

Charles smiles, a little tension he didn’t realize he’d been carrying easing from him. He turns to Erik and finds him staring, an inscrutable expression on his face, his mouth slightly open and eyebrows slightly raised. Charles very much wants to peek and see what it is he might be thinking, but something gives him pause, and instead, he stands there, looking just as steadily back, waiting to see which one of them will give first.

It’s Erik. He rises off the couch, taking a few steps forward before he appears to realize what he’s doing and stops, already halfway across the living room. Unable to hold back his grin, Charles cocks his head slightly, raising an eyebrow in mock question, and sees the tips of Erik’s ears turn bright red. He flounders for a moment, his mouth opening and closing once before he takes one more cautious step forward.

“Do you know how to do the zipper?” he asks, pointing to the open part of the jacket.

Charles looks down at the thin white strips on either side of the blue fabric. “Is that what those are?” he asks. “I’ve never seen them before. Zippers?”

Erik nods. “Yes,” he says, zeroing in on them as well.

“Why don’t you just do it and show me,” Charles says, because really, he was going to ask anyway.

Erik steps forward again slowly, almost as if he’s afraid he’ll spook himself or Charles if he moves too fast, until he’s close enough Charles can feel the heat radiating out from him, and he reaches for the bottom of the fabric. There’s a small, flat piece on one side, and another thing with some sort of gliding mechanism that Charles played around with briefly before dressing but couldn’t quite figure out on the other. He watches carefully, though, as Erik fits the flat piece into the hole in the other and jerks the tab of the second piece up.

Somehow the two pieces latch together, and Charles watches with fascination as each tooth of the zipper disappears in two parts only to come out attached at the bottom. If they had time, he’d ask to take it apart to see just how the gliding mechanism works. Charles has always had a technical mind, often one that got him into trouble when he was younger, but he’s never really grown out of the habit of asking questions and trying to fix puzzles nonetheless.

Erik doesn’t zip the jacket all the way, stopping a little over halfway up so there’s an open triangle of grey still showing at the top, but when he’s finished, he pauses, not yet dropping his hands away. It’s almost as if they’re magnetized to Charles’ skin, one hand resting lightly against Charles’ chest where it holds the fabric of the loose end close to the gliding one. Charles looks up and realizes just how close they’ve drifted, and when Erik looks up too, it seems even closer.

He can’t seem to stop his gaze from falling to Erik’s mouth. It wouldn’t take anything to lean forward and press their lips together, Charles thinks wildly. Just a few inches, and then—

“Come on, then, let’s see,” Moira says from the couch, and both Charles and Erik jump, thrown abruptly back into reality.

Erik hesitates just a second longer, his gaze flickering from Charles’ eyes to his mouth and back. But then he steps away and off to the side, his eyes averted down to the floor. Charles doesn’t bother pretending he’s not watching him, but Moira seems not to notice the moment she’s broken, standing up and making her way over to them with an approving smile.

“You were made to wear the blue and silver, Charles,” she says. “It really brings out your eyes, actually.”

“Yeah,” Erik says, his voice sounding rough. Charles wonders if Moira picks up on that, at least. “It looks really good.”

“Shall we go and meet the others, then?” Moira asks, already turning to head towards the door where an extra pair of boots are waiting on the rug.

“Sure,” Charles says.

He doesn’t want to go, really. He feels a little off-kilter from Erik’s proximity, and where his hands felt like they left a visible mark against his skin, but it’s not as if he has much of a choice but to follow her. He can’t ask her to leave and give him and Erik a moment, much as he would like to be alone with him; it’s her house, after all. He does allow himself one indulgence, though. As he passes Erik on his way to the door, he reaches out and brushes his fingertips across the back of Erik’s hand, giving him a pointed look. Erik gives him the smallest of nods, and the corner of Charles’ mouth twitches in the beginnings of a smile that he quickly squashes before Moira can see it.

They’ll talk later, Charles promises himself. Perhaps the ship will provide a little more privacy, as long as Erik and Moira don’t have to both be piloting it all the way to Fhloston. Maybe Charles can talk Erik into giving him a little flying lesson—human ships are bound to be easier for him to fly than the Oyemai’s were. Right number of fingers and all that.

There are a pair of socks balled up in the tops of the boots and Charles pulls them on first before tucking his feet and the cuffs of his pants into them, trying to tell himself Erik isn’t watching his every move very intently. It isn’t convincing. He can practically feel the weight of Erik’s gaze on him, and he lets himself preen a little, taking just a bit longer than he would normally to do up the laces and tie them in an intricate knot he used to use to belt his tunics.

“Well,” he says when he straightens, trying to put the right amount of self-assurance and confidence into his words, “let’s go save the world.”

 

*

 

The ship hangar is enormous. Charles has never seen anything like it before, and he has to continuously remind himself not to gape at everything with his mouth open wide. The Oyemai kept their ships in neat circles out on the grass, larger ships grouped with larger ships and likewise with the smaller, but other than that there hadn’t been much organization beyond _these are our ships, here is where they park._

Here at the human military base where they have to pass through three different checkpoints first before Charles even starts recognizing anything that might be a ship, things are much more chaotic. The roof of the hanger looms up high over their heads, like an artificial ceiling, and Charles has a hard time trying to reconcile such a large, open space still counting as being inside. Ships of all shapes and sizes are lined up in rows, berth numbers glowing bright overhead and each long row in between, which Erik whispers to him is called a dock, stretching on for seemingly forever.

Beneath the ships is an anthill of activity, even for the night shift, uniformed humans running every which way carrying tablets or fuel lines or—Charles doesn’t even have a name for the strange claw-like contraption one woman attaches to the outer right wing of one ship they pass as he follows Erik and Moira down one of the docks. Erik and Moira seem to be a familiar sight, at least, many people calling out greetings to Moira or giving Erik nods of recognition, which Moira returns and Erik ignores half the time. Logan doesn’t seem as impressed as Charles feels, walking with his hands tucked deeply into his robes with a stony expression on his face, and while Raven seems excited to be here, she’s not as out of place as Charles is, walking through the middle of an alien shipyard.

At least he’s dressed for the part. Moira had been right, and no one’s looked twice at Charles; it’s been mainly Logan who has been garnering the most attention. Raven had shapeshifted herself into a flightsuit like Charles, even going so far as to change her blue, scaly skin to pale human skin and giving herself long blond hair that she’d absently twisted up on top of her head. With Erik and Moira in the lead, she’d explained, she and Charles could pass as just starstruck ensigns.

Charles isn’t sure he wants to be hit by a star, but he’s content to be following behind Erik. The dock is busy, but the crowd parts easily once they see who’s coming. Even Moira seems a little smug about it, so Charles chalks it up to how well-known Erik and Moira must be for their skills. It makes him feel even luckier than he already does to have met them.

He rubs his eyes, nearly tripping over an extension cord that trails across the dock. The overhead lights in the hangar are terribly bright, illuminating even the corners behind stacks of fuel pods or cargo containers. Charles doesn’t see why artificial light needs to be so glaring.

“Here she is,” Erik says, and Charles wills the spots dancing across his vision to clear faster so he can see again.

When his eyes clear, Charles thinks he’d fall instantly in love if ships were sentient. Erik and Moira’s ship stands at the end of the dock, fitting neatly in the last berth. She isn’t terribly large, but she’s all sleek, aggressive lines, and her streamlined, silver hull is polished so perfectly Charles images he’d be able to see his own reflection upon closer inspection. She perches daintily on four legs, their bases sprawled out like talons, and the gangway is lowered, leading up into her belly where the hatch is already open like a gaping maw. Her bridge is identifiable from the outside, located at the front with windows that bubble out slightly even though Charles can’t see into the cockpit, and her wings sweep out wide on either side—Earth has a thick atmosphere, as far as land bases go for ships, so Charles knows most human ships are still designed with wings for easier entries. The ship’s engines are clustered at the back, four enormous nacelles attached to a turbine that will spin them around and around like a pinwheel: this ship is built for speed.

“She’s not much,” Moira says, a vast understatement if Charles has ever heard one, “but she’s our baby.”

“She’ll do,” Logan grunts.

“What kind of weapons does she have?” Raven asks excitedly. She’s admiring the two long plasma cannons, long and thin, that run alongside either side of the ship, facing forward like prongs or dual lances. “Erik will never tell me, he always says it’s—”

“Classified,” Moira says dryly, and Raven makes a face. “Sorry, he’s actually not withholding information to be a jerk. We shouldn’t even be needing weapons for this run anyway.”

“Does she have a name?” Charles asks, thinking again of the Oyemai and their ships named after different landscape formations of their home planet. Translated into English, the names are awkward and clunky, like River Curving To The North, or Outcrop Of Three Pointed Rocks, but in Oyemai they had been more lyrical and lilting.

“Magneto,” Erik says proudly, and Charles has to catch himself before he laughs. It’s so simple and short. Everyone else seems to accept the name, though, so it must be another strange human thing. It’s oddly endearing.

“MacTaggert, Lehnsherr,” a voice calls out, and Charles sees Erik and Moira exchange swift glances. A man with a tablet in one hand strides down the gangway out of the Magneto, sounding surprised to see them. He’s dressed in a flightsuit similar to the ones Charles and Raven wear, only his is bright orange. “I didn’t expect you to be back this early.”

 _Should I—?_ Charles reaches out with his telepathy to ask Erik silently. _I can make him forget he’s seen us._ I think, he adds to himself as an aside.

Erik hesitates for a split second. _No_ , he replies, _we’ll handle it_. “How’s she look, Lieutenant?” he asks in a voice Charles has never heard him use before. There’s an edge to his voice that demands attention, flat and intimidating; nothing at all like the dry, teasing Erik Charles has grown familiar with.

The man—Lieutenant—seems to straighten. “Everything checks out,” he reports, his voice more formal, “nothing out of the ordinary to report. We got the repairs done on the fuel plug you requested, and she’s all fueled up and ready to go.”

“Excellent,” Moira says briskly, and Charles can feel her thoughts flashing like lightning as she thinks fast, “we’ll be launching shortly, then. New orders came in this afternoon. Escort duty for the honorable Priest.” She nods to Logan.

“Your honor,” Lieutenant says, giving a jerky nod of his own. Logan stares at him impassively and then strides past them all up into the ship. “You two taking on ensigns?” he asks, glancing at Charles and Raven curiously.

Erik makes a derisive noise, and his disdain couldn’t be any clearer. Silently, he says, a little apologetically, _Sorry. I’ve always made a lot of noise about how I don’t want to be a babysitter for snot-nosed brats. He’d be suspicious if I was gung-ho about it now._

 _That sounds terrible,_ Charles says in dismay, because in his experience snot has never been comfortable. _I’m sorry they’re not feeling well._

 _Just another expression, Charles_ , Erik thinks back, thoughts tinged with amusement.

 _English is **terrible**_ , Charles reiterates ruefully.

 _You’ll get the hang of it_ , Erik assures him, so straightforwardly confident in Charles that Charles has to stop himself from allowing the burst of warmth he feels for Erik to leak over across the entire hangar.

Moira merely smiles at Lieutenant. “Escort duty is an easy practice run for greenhorns. We got slapped with these two since we generally avoid taking any on thanks to Lehnsherr.”

Lieutenant laughs, clearly in on the joke. “Good luck,” he says to Charles and Raven with a wink.

“Thank you, sir,” Raven says,

“Go do your job,” Erik mutters, and walks towards the gangway. _Follow me, Charles_.

 _Come on_ , Charles says to Raven, and together they follow Erik up into the Magneto while Moira exchanges a few last words with Lieutenant. She seems calm and casual, no unease flickering anywhere in her thoughts, so Charles leaves her to it.

“That was a little less action-packed than I imagined,” Raven whispers to Charles. She even sounds slightly disappointed, and Charles has to stifle his grin.

“Well we’re not out of the atmosphere yet,” he points out, “though for all our sakes I hope it _stays_ this easy. I’d rather avoid conflict.” He wonders how much trouble Erik and Moira will be in once it’s discovered how they’ve essentially gone rogue, and the thought makes him guilty. It’s clear how much both Erik and Moira love their ship, and Charles wouldn’t want them to be fired on his behalf. Surely helping him save the world will earn them both a pardon when it’s all said and done.

Raven grunts noncommittally, but as they make their way up into the interior of the ship she falls silent, looking around interestedly. The ship looks bigger than Charles gave it credit for on the outside—which is saying something. Logan’s leaning against one of the walls just inside waiting for them, but he picks himself up, following as Erik leads them down a long hallway that opens up to a cockpit Charles can just see through the open door at the end. But before the cockpit, the room the gangway opens up into, appears to be some sort of storage area large enough to hold two of Erik’s car and still leave plenty of room to breathe. There are a few crates stacked off to the right and bolted down with thick mesh, and a spindly metal staircase that leads to a platform right next to them. The top balcony branches off into two hallways Charles can’t see, and to their left is another hallway with several doors on either side.

Somewhere, Charles knows there’s sleeping quarters for ten people, a kitchen, bathroom, and even a small common area and medbay, besides the battle stations Erik had mentioned in passing. Apparently the ship is large enough to hold ten crewmembers at least, and plenty more passengers if the need arises, but there hasn’t been much call for such things in several decades. Mostly now, Erik had said, he and Moira do supply runs to outposts on the edges of the galaxy, or routine patrols to make sure the borders of the Milky Way remain safe. Charles is looking forward to investigating every nook and cranny of the Magneto to find all of its hidden little places, but that will have to wait until they’re in the air and safely on their way. For now, he settles for staring around in wonder, taking in all he can as he follows Erik into the cockpit, their boots clacking on the hard metal floor.

“This is amazing,” Raven breathes as they step inside.

It truly is: the front windows are taller than Charles thinks he and Erik would be if he stood on Erik’s shoulders, and they stretch around for a complete 180 degree view of the hangar. In front of a complicated looking set of buttons, switches and screens are two large, tear-shaped chairs that Charles guesses must be for the pilots. They certainly seem to be the focal point of the whole deck, standing apart from the four seats built into the back wall like an afterthought.

“These are for ensigns and any ranked personnel that might need to hitch a ride,” Erik explains, gesturing to them as if he’s the mind reader. “You can sit there while we take off, if you want a good view.”

“What other option is there?” Raven asks, adding a little too hopefully, “strapping into a battle pod?”

“ _No_ ,” Erik says pointedly, giving her an unamused look, but Charles sees the corners of his mouth twitch before he turns around and heads toward one of the chairs. “No battle pods.”

Logan makes an unhappy sort of noise and shuffles over to the seats, eyeing them skeptically. “What if we ain’t exactly keen on the view?” he asks.

“You’re afraid of flying?” Raven asks incredulously.

Logan shrugs. “It ain’t my favorite.”

“There are seats along the wall inside the cargo hold that fold out,” Erik calls back to them. “There’ll be more turbulence, but all you’ll be able to see is metal.”

“Sounds good to me,” Logan grunts.

He turns around and exits back into the hallway, edging his way around Moira who’s just appeared again and is making her quick way over to her seat. As soon as she sits, Erik gives her a nod of acknowledgement and they both begin flipping switches, screens flickering into life and beeping hello. Charles touches Raven’s arm and jerks his head toward the closest two seats when she looks up at him. Together, they sit down and buckle up just as Moira reaches under the console to flick a switch and a grinding noise starts up from the back of the ship.

“Gangway up,” she announces. “Ready for engine one as soon as we get the go-ahead from control.”

“Copy that,” Erik says tonelessly. “Waiting for control.” He turns to Moira, his eyes slightly wary as he looks at her. “No problems then?”

“None whatsoever,” Moira replies, typing something into her screen and pressing another button. Something metal on the bottom of the ship clicks loudly. “Asked him about his twins before he could get too curious. Hastings always loves talking about his family,” she gives him a smirk, “which you would know if you talked to anyone on base besides me.”

Erik snorts. “You say that like you just didn’t give me a prime example of why I shouldn’t.”

Moira rolls her eyes, turning back to grin at Charles and Raven. “He acts like he’s too cool for these kinds of things, but you should have seen him when some little toddler at an outpost took a shine to him. We were stationed there a week and he could hardly go anywhere without her waddling along behind him like a baby duck.”

“Why was I never told of this?” Raven asks, perking up.

“She was a mutant!” Erik yelps, while Moira tosses back her head and laughs. “There were five other mutants on the whole spaceport. What was I supposed to do, ignore her?”

“I caught him levitating blocks for her at the canteen during lunch one day,” Moira says. “He was so proud, you could tell.”

A bright red message flashes across the otherwise blue screen in front of Erik. “Turn around so I can start the engine; that’s control,” he snaps.

Still chuckling, Moira swivels front. Simultaneously, they reach forward and flip two red switches off to the side of their individual screens, and at once the engine comes alive with a loud noise somewhere between a whine and a hum.

“Engine two coming online,” Moira says, and together they flip another switch.

A dull thrumming begins to resonate up through Charles’ feet, and he feels his heart jump excitedly into his throat. For the first time since leaving the Oyemai planet he starts to actually feel confident. By tomorrow they should have the stones and be headed back to Earth, ready to do the ritual before the Dark Planet can even get within the Solar System. Every time they’ve been met with an obstacle so far, he and his friends have managed to tackle it, which is more than he could have ever hoped for. He smiles, sitting back in his seat and gripping the edge of it as the ship begins to lift up into the air, hovering over the docked ships and heading toward the mile long opening at the end of the hangar.

“Landing gear going up,” Erik announces, pressing a button that makes the ship give another whine as the spindly little legs lift up into its body.

Charles can practically feel the drag against the outside of the ship waning with the obstacles gone, the ride smoothing as their pace picks up. The closer they get to the opening of the hangar, the more his excitement mounts. In the city, there had been so much light pollution that it had been hard to tell if it was night or day, but the hangar is on the outskirts of the city, far enough that they’d even been able to enter at a ground level rather than hundreds of feet in the air like everywhere else Charles has been on Earth so far.

Out here, Charles can even make out stars through the hangar door, shining like beacons in the night sky. He takes a deep breath as they shoot forward, rocketing out of the building and into the open air. There’s no other ship in sight and hardly any other building for miles around; New York City lies behind them, so Charles can’t see the halo of light it gives off until they turn and bank and it creeps into view to their left. He can’t hold back his gasp at the sight. Raven turns to him, smiling almost as brightly as the city.

“They don’t call it the jewel of New York for nothing,” she says. “See how it shines?”

“I think you’d have to be blind not to,” Charles says around a breathless laugh. “I knew it was big, flying through it, but…”

“But when you’re in it, it just looks like concrete and steel and exhaust,” Raven says, nodding. “It’s hard to love it, unless you grew up there. From the outside, it’s easier to see the appeal.”

Charles pauses, wetting his lips as he thinks. “The Oyemai don’t have cities like that,” he says quietly. “I mean, they _have_ cities, but they go down into the ground rather than up so far. But the Oyemai population is also much more spread out. Their planet is larger around than Earth by several thousand miles.”

“I’ve never been to an inhabited planet before,” Raven says pensively, staring out the front window. “I went to Ganymede once—that’s Jupiter’s largest moon. There’s a colony on it, and I had a cousin that lived there for a while. Maybe when the mission’s over we can go visit the Oyemai.” She turns to grin at him. “You could be a translator.”

Charles grins back. “I’d like that. If we could get Erik to agree to it, I think he’d like the Oyemai, too.”

Raven pauses, a strange expression crossing her face, twisting her mouth uncertainly, and she cocks her head to the side. “Erik?” she asks.

Charles nods, his face falling. He feels somehow like he’s taken a misstep although how he doesn’t quite know. Humans are so confusing. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“No,” Raven says at once, shaking her head. “It’s just… I don’t see why he insists on saying you aren’t together when, well. You so very obviously are.”

“Of course we’re together,” Charles says, nonplussed. “We all are. Erik and me and you and Moira and—”

“That’s not what I mean,” Raven cuts in. “Together, like, romantically.”

Charles swallows, his stomach twisting. “Romantically?”

Raven smirks. “Yeah, like—” she breaks off, puckering her lips and making little kissing noises with them. “ _Together_ together.”

“I don’t see how repeating helps it make any more sense,” Charles mumbles petulantly, feeling his cheeks heat. He hears Raven scoff quietly next to him.

“I don’t mean it’s a bad thing,” she explains. “Actually, I think you’re good for each other, from what I’ve seen. I just don’t see why the big objection. I mean, what’s he waiting for?”

Charles leans back against the seat and looks out the window again, trying to find the appropriate words for his response. To be fair, it’s not like he and Erik have had a lot of time to talk or even _think_ about the feelings they might have for each other. Without his telepathy, he might never have figured it out in time to do something about it. There’s also the slight dilemma he’s been having with himself about whether or not he should even try to begin something, what with the imminent end of the universe and all; shouldn’t that be more important?

“It’s complicated,” Charles settles on.

Raven snorts again, clearly unsatisfied, but she apparently decides to let the subject drop anyway, silence descending between them once more. It doesn’t last very long, though; soon Moira twists around in her seat again to glance at them.

“You two doing all right?” she asks.

“Yep,” Raven answers, holding a hand out in front of her with just her thumb sticking up. “When are we going into space?”

“In just a second,” Moira says. “We needed a minute for the third engine to heat up. Once they’re all in action, we can use them to go into lightspeed. We can’t do it the whole way, we don’t have enough fuel for that, but it should get us to Fhloston by tomorrow afternoon. Plenty of time to—”

A loud beep sounds from somewhere and one of the screens near the center of the dash begins to flash with a message. Moira frowns, whipping around in her chair to read it.

“Shit,” she breathes.

“It’s Control,” Erik says, loud enough for Raven and Charles to hear. “They’re requesting a transmission. Stay out of sight of the screen. We can’t deny it, but we can make sure they don’t see you.”

Quickly, Raven bends so she’s folded in half in her seat, staring down at the floor, reaching out to grab Charles’ arm and pulling him down, too. Charles’ heart begins to hammer against his ribcage in earnest, but he tries to remain calm as he stares down at his own feet, keeping his breathing shallow and quiet so he can make out the voices as Erik opens the request.

“Lehnsherr,” a deep voice barks at once. “MacTaggart. Just where do you think you’re going?”

“Escort duty,” Moira replies smoothly. “For a Priest. All our paperwork went through with Lieutenant Hastings, if you have any—”

“I _know_ ,” the voice interrupts. “I have Lieutenant Hastings with me right now. Mentioned to me on his way to the mess hall that you’d been called out on what’s supposed to be your day off. The repairs he had to make to your fuel line put the repairs to _my_ ship on hold for the afternoon.”

“Orders are orders,” Erik says. “Apologies for any inconveniences, Captain, but we had no say in the matter.”

The voice laughs, sharp and humorless, and Charles feels his blood turn cold. “Funny,” it says, sounding like it doesn’t find anything funny at all, “I believe I outrank you, and I heard no such thing about a red-eye escort for some Priest from any of my fellow commanding officers.”

“Can we help it if they don’t tell you everything?” Erik snaps back, but Charles can hear a distinct edge of panic in his voice.

He bites down hard on his lip, balling his hands into fists. They’re so close, _so close_ , they can’t turn back now. There’s no time. Frantically, Charles begins to whirl through their options for escape. He should tell Erik to turn off the comm and punch into lightspeed before anyone has a chance to get a lock on their location. They didn’t tell anyone they were going to Fhloston; by the time the government catches up with them—if they even catch up with them at all—they’ll have the stones, and maybe then Charles will be able to talk them into seeing sense. Didn’t Logan say they knew the Dark Planet existed? But if not, he could try to wipe their memories. That might not work, but it could buy them enough time to get to the pyramid and do the ritual. Taking a deep breath, Charles reaches out to Erik’s mind.

But just as he’s about to tell him to run, he feels movement next to him that makes him pause. Raven is sitting up, her seat belt coming open with a quiet _clink_ that echoes through the otherwise deathly quiet cockpit. Panicking, Charles turns to gape up at her, ready to snag her arm and pull her back down below the screen’s line of sight, but when he turns he sees she doesn’t look like Raven at all anymore. She’s changed into someone else; a woman several inches shorter than her natural form with striking green eyes and bright purple streaks in her otherwise black hair. She wears a uniform similar to the one Charles is wearing, but with many, many more decorations across the chest and down the arm, and there’s a determined kind of set to her features that communicates that she is a woman to be listened to and respected.

“Captain,” Raven says with the other woman’s voice. It’s slightly higher than normal, but with a steely edge that’s missing from her own. “The orders were above your classification. Lehnsherr and MacTaggart are with me. Do I make myself clear?”

“Commander Ferguson,” the voice squeaks, and Charles can’t stop himself from glancing up. There’s a man on the screen, his sharp brown crew-cut streaked through with grey at the temples, mouth open and eyes disbelieving as he stares at Raven. Quickly, he comes back to his senses and snaps to a salute. “Yes. Yes, of course, Ma’am. If I had known—”

“But you didn’t, Captain,” Raven cuts in. “And if you tell anyone else that you saw me, or try to raise any more stink about the Magneto’s assignment, I will personally have you dishonorably discharged.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Captain replies at once. “Understood, Ma’am. Signing off now.”

The screen goes blissfully blank a second later, and all of them sag at once with relief, Raven changing back into her natural form with a click of scales.

“Holy shit, that was close,” Moira sighs. “Raven. Thank you. That was inspired.”

“Thanks,” Raven says around a shaky chuckle. “I’ve always wanted to do something like that.”

“Lucky for us,” Erik says, but he reaches back and pats her hand where it’s resting on the back of his chair. “I’m glad you came along with us.”

“I’m glad, too,” Raven says, smiling slightly.

“Um,” Charles says, not quite sure if he should speak up or not, but the curiosity is overwhelming in the wake of all the panic. “Why did Captain turn off the comm?”

Erik turns around, giving Charles a brief, almost secret smile. “Raven posed as the Commander of Earth’s Intergalactic Fleet. Commander Ferguson. The highest ranking officer, next to Commander in Chief, President Bishop.”

Charles’ mouth drops open, and Raven laughs again, less shaky this time. She turns and makes her way back to the seat, flopping down next to Charles and ruffling his hair affectionately. Leaning into the touch, Charles smiles back, feeling slightly giddy. Running away from Police, breaking into the hangar, stealing Government property, impersonating ranked officials. They’re creating quite a rap sheet for themselves. Maybe Charles should be more worried about it, but for right now, he can’t help but feel infinitely thankful that he has such remarkable, resourceful humans on his side.

“You’d better strap back in,” Moira says. “Now that the engines are all online we need to get into lightspeed as soon as possible.”

Raven straps back in while Charles double-checks his own belt, the dual straps resting like an X across his chest. It’s much easier to strap himself in the human way; on the Oyemai ship he’d pretty much had to struggle into as many belts as he could and hope for the best. This feels moderately safer even though he’s barely felt the thrust of the ship as it coasts out of the atmosphere and up into the stars.

“Approaching the green zone,” Erik intones, and when Charles cranes his neck he’s able to watch the long stream of text scrolling down continuously on the screen in front of Erik. Without turning around this time Erik continues absently, “Charles, the green zone is the general term for being a safe distance away from the atmosphere to jump to lightspeed.”

“I see,” Charles answers, smiling to himself at how Erik had anticipated his question. He refuses to look over at Raven, who is grinning widely at him in the corner of his vision.

“Ready,” Moira announces, tapping out a set of commands, her left hand moving over to hover above a sleek lever in the console. “Course vectors set. It’s just one straight shot to Fhloston.”

“On my mark,” Erik says, resting his hand flat on the plexiglass. A white light shines brightly but briefly beneath his palm, and now Charles can feel the engines beginning to hum. He imagines the turbine beginning to spin, rotating the engine pods around faster and faster. “Ready...punch it.”

Erik slides his hand forward and Moira slowly, steadily pushes her lever forward too, and Charles watches out the main viewscreen as the blackness of space around them bleeds into empty whiteness as they accelerate, rushing into the void.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

The first few hours on the ship are exciting, a residual high from adrenaline still pumping after blatantly breaking a few laws, but even so the blank whiteness of hyperspace doesn’t take long to get repetitive and boring. Erik’s preoccupied running a few diagnostics scans with Moira on the patches new to their systems when Raven and Charles finally unbuckle and slip out of the bridge—Charles smooths a hand briefly across Erik’s shoulder before he goes, and while Erik would prefer Charles to stay, he grudgingly acknowledges there’s not much point in Charles sitting behind him and Moira, ignored while they chatter back and forth in jargon.

Once they’ve both familiarized themselves with the new patches—nothing buggy this time, fortunately, and everything seems to be running smoothly—Moira volunteers herself for the first bridge shift, which makes sense: it’s going to take just about 16 hours to get from Earth to Fhloston even at lightspeed, so they might as well split it up into four alternating four-hour shifts. Erik leaves her to it, getting up to stretch and then steps out of the bridge.

As much as he’d like to go check in on Charles, who is probably sitting with Raven and Logan in the Magneto’s cozy little common room down towards the sleeping quarters, Erik steers himself down to the engine room to make sure they haven’t fucked up his baby too badly this time. Generally he trusts the engineers at base, since there’s no reason not to, but still nothing compares to Erik’s powers and how well he personally knows the Magneto inside and out.

Because they’re traveling at lightspeed, the doorway at the end of the room that leads to the turbine and the engine pods is sealed shut, as there’s little point in attempting to take a look at the pods while they’re rotating at speeds upwards of 80 miles an hour. The power cores, however, are perfectly accessible, so Erik pops open the control hatch and sinks his powers down into the metal, keeping carefully back from the reactor itself where the matter-antimatter annihilation takes place, releasing massive amounts of energy in the form of subnuclear particles and electromagnetic radiation.

The radiation is tricky, his powers always drawn to it, and sometimes Erik has to wrench himself back like a magnet to avoid getting tangled up with it and potentially frying himself. Fortunately the dilithium crystals located in another sealed chamber off the main engine room are quick to funnel the energy away, keeping the rest of the ship from frying.

Immersed in the ship as he is, Erik ends up spending far more time than he originally intended to down in the engine room. When he comes back to himself at last, he has a crick in his neck and his legs are numb, dead asleep and tingle painfully as soon as he tries to move. A glance at the control panel screen tells him he only has an hour until he’s supposed to take over for Moira, so he pulls himself up off the deck and makes his way to the common room.

Charles sits alone, curled in the alcove at the table. He’s utterly absorbed by the portable holoscreen in front of him, and doesn’t even look up as Erik enters. There’s no volume but Erik can tell he’s watching something, bright flashes dancing across his face as he watches intently.

“Not getting any rest?” Erik asks him, and Charles looks up, blinking. “It counts as night time right now, which is usually when we sleep. We’re not nocturnal.”

“Oh, Erik,” he says as Erik sinks down across from him. “Logan and Raven went off to bed, but I’m not tired yet.” He smiles faintly. “Still a little wired up from today, I guess.”

“It’s fine,” Erik says, and then admits, “I am too.” It’s been a very long, strange day. For a moment he half-wonders if this is some kind of extended dream, but no: he’s here, and so is Charles, solid and real across the table, studying him with clear blue eyes.

“What were you doing, earlier?” Charles asks. “I could feel you using your powers—not that I was trying to pry, I was just wondering where you were—” he breaks off with a huff, and Erik is surprised by the sudden wave of fondness he feels as he watches Charles mentally rewind. “What I mean is, you were doing something with your powers and your whole mind was lit up.”

“I was down in the engine room,” Erik explains. He can feel his mouth curving upwards, smiling just because he’s here with Charles, and this has never happened to Erik before with anyone aside from his mother. He’s not sure what it says about him, but he’s too content right now to have the meltdown it would normally ensue. “I like to feel out the ship with my powers. I’m acquainted with every bolt and rivet she’s made up of, and I know the engines like the back of my hand.” He shrugs. “It’s comforting, in a way. I like being surrounded by familiar metal.”

Charles’ eyes have gone soft. “You make a very fine pilot, Erik.”

Erik snorts, leaning against the backrest of his seat. “Don’t give me too much credit, you haven’t even seen my moves yet.”

“I can’t tell whether you’re being humble or just obnoxious,” Charles says, and laughs when Erik grins at him. “Let’s just hope you won’t need to be doing any fancy maneuvering.” His eyes slide to their left, looking out the round porthole window even though there’s nothing to see beyond the whiteness. “We should be staying far enough away from the Dark Planet itself, but I’m worried we’ll be attacked by the same ships that destroyed the Oyemai I was with before.”

“We’ll be fine, Charles,” Erik says, sitting up straight and meeting his gaze seriously when Charles turns back to face him. “The Magneto is armed, so we can put up a good fight. Moira’s got the best aim in the entire Fleet. And as far as your enemies go, they think you were destroyed along with the Oyemai, so they won’t be looking for you. You’re the Fifth Element, but you’ve got one more element up your sleeve.”

“I do?” Charles asks in perplexity, brow wrinkling.

“The element of _surprise_.”

It’s cheesy, and Erik mentally winces, glad that Raven and Moira aren’t within earshot, but it makes Charles laugh again, and judging by the soft smile he gives Erik the joke is appreciated rather than frowned upon. Erik knows he can’t do much to lighten the incredible weight Charles seems to be carrying around on his shoulders, but at least he can make Charles forget about it for a little bit while there’s still time.

“What are you watching?” he asks, nodding at the holovid.

“I was taking the opportunity to look through your historical archives, and learn your history,” Charles explains. He rotates the screen around so Erik can see, though there’s not much sense to be made as he appears to be watching everything at triple speed. “I was in the early 2000s when you came in.”

Erik grimaces. “From what I can remember from primary school, the 2000s were an embarrassing century in general for humanity.”

“They really aren’t flattering,” Charles agrees, “but still, they laid the beginnings of the groundwork for you to get where you are now.”

“Technologically, maybe,” Erik says, “but socially we were pathetic. It’s a good thing we’re past that now or I don’t know why you’d ever want to bother to save us all.”

“It was never _that_ hopeless,” Charles admonishes, kicking Erik lightly beneath the table. “It just took you a little time. No one can be faulted for that, as long as they’re changing.”

Erik shakes his head. “You’re far more forgiving than I am.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m the one who’s supposed to do the saving around here,” Charles says with a small laugh, but just like that he’s grown serious again, troubled and beginning to withdraw.

“I have about an hour before I’m supposed to switch off with Moira on the bridge,” Erik says, casting around for the right thing to say. He comes up blank, until his gaze falls on the table’s control panel. “Up for a game of chess?”

“Chess,” Charles repeats, trying out the word delicately. “I know what that is. It’s believed to have originated in India, but modern-day chess _tournaments_ didn’t begin until your late 19th century. There was also a computer named Deep Blue that—”

“That’s the game,” Erik interrupts him, amused. He thinks he wouldn’t mind listening to Charles prattle on about chess for an entire hour, but then they’d never get to playing.

“Of course,” Charles says, a little chagrinned. “Anyway, I didn’t learn the rules yet so I don’t know how to play.”

“I’ll teach you,” Erik says, secretly pleased by the notion. He taps the panel and the table lights up, projecting a traditional black-and-white-squared board a few inches above the surface, all the pieces lined up on either side. Erik flicks the edge of the board to spin it around so the white pieces are closest to Charles, leaving himself with the black. “We have 3-D chess now, but we’ll start with regular chess.”

Charles licks his lips eagerly, leaning forward towards the hologram of the board with anticipation. “Sounds good.”

It takes a bit for Erik to explain the basics to Charles—how each piece moves and basic strategy of how to put someone into checkmate—but Charles is an incredibly fast learner. Though he stays mostly silent, merely nodding and making vague humming sounds as Erik speaks, Erik can already feel a vague sense of foreboding that Charles’ mind is working a million miles a minutes, already coming up with ways to beat him. That idea shouldn’t make something warm begin to unspool within him, but it does, and Erik hastily shoves aside the thought before it can blossom into something else.

“So, white goes first,” Erik says, clearing his throat. “Most people move either a pawn, obviously, but you can also move a knight. That’ the only piece that can come out from behind the line.”

“In a Roman ‘L’ shape,” Charles replies, and Erik nods.

“Yeah. Although, I mean, you can just say ‘L’. Latin’s dead now.”

“Right,” Charles says, giving Erik a little, embarrassed smile before he frowns down at the board and moves forward his leftmost pawn with a cautious finger. He sits back against the seat, his brow still creased for a moment before it evens out. He seems pleased with his choice. “Your turn.”

Erik takes far less time to make his move, tossing out a pawn in front of his left bishop almost carelessly. Chess has long been one of his favorite pass-times when he can find someone to play it with him. Moira’s only ever up for a game when she’s well and truly bored, which is hardly ever, and most of the ensigns Erik can usually intimidate into playing know that they’re doomed from the start and hardly put up a fight. The only other person who will play with him willingly is his mother, but she lost her set when she moved apartments a few months ago, and Erik hasn’t gotten around to buying her a new one yet. As such, he’s a little out of practice, but Charles seems like he’ll be a good opponent, despite being a newbie.

Another white pawn slides forward in front of Charles’ queen, and they quickly settle into a slow but steady rhythm. A few more moves pass before Erik decides to break the silence.

“I’ve been playing chess almost my whole life,” he says. “My mother taught me how, when I was six.”

Charles looks up at him, a curious smile on the edges of his mouth. “You play this with your mother?” he asks. “What’s her name?”

“Edie,” Erik replies, smiling a little. He looks up at Charles under his lashes, giving him a conspiratorial look. “She’d love you.”

“Will I get to meet her?” Charles asks, brightening instantly.

Erik shrugs. “When all this is over, why not? You’ll need a place to stay anyway, and—” he stops up short, realizing that maybe he’s moving too fast. He’s known Charles less than twenty-four hours and already he was on the verge of asking him to move in. Actually, it was more like he’d assumed, to be honest; for whatever reason his brain’s automatic assumption is that wherever Charles is, that’s where Erik must be also.

He clears his throat, moving a knight forward towards Charles’ bishop. “Anyway,” he continues lamely. “There’s nowhere else you have to be afterwards… is there?”

Charles looks away, shaking his head and staring down at the board. “No,” he says quietly. “The Oyemai… I was supposed to be here with them. After the ship got shot down, they probably thought I died along with everyone else. They most likely won’t be expecting me back.”

“Would you go back, anyway? If it was your choice?” Erik asks suddenly, and Charles looks up again, gazing at him in that deep, unblinking way that almost makes Erik’s skin crawl with its intensity. But then Charles smiles softly, his eyes going a little distant, and the tension dissipates.

“That’s a good question,” he says evenly, taking one of Erik’ pawns with a rook.

Erik raises an eyebrow, moving another piece without even bothering to see if it’s a smart move or not. “And what’s your answer?”

Charles sighs, sitting back against the chair cushion and bringing curling his legs up so his chin is nearly resting on his knees. He bites gently at his lip, looking out the window again at the whiteness of the stars as they flash by. The image is so soft and so peaceful that Erik somehow feels that if he breathes too loudly he might break it, like a blown glass ornament. More than anything he doesn’t want this moment to shatter, and for the weight of the universe to come crashing back down on Charles’ small, sturdy shoulders.

“No,” Charles says quietly. “If this works. If we can defeat the Dark Planet and… and survive. I want to see it. All of it. Everything.” He turns back to Erik, and his eyes are bright with possibility. “My whole life I’ve been coddled. My parents coddled me, and when they were gone the Oyemai coddled me. Everyone treated me like I was something to be feared and admired. But when you get put on a pedestal like that, people stop seeing you as a person. They forget that you have thoughts and feelings and ambitions of your own, and instead they let you waste away in your own heroism. Kind of like a microcosm of what happened to the Elements as a whole. I’m not going to suffer the same fate as the rest of them.”

His gaze is far away, and a little steely, but there’s also something hopeful in it, and Erik finds himself reflecting on how absolutely positive he is that there’s nothing in this world that Charles can’t do.

“I don’t think that would be possible, Charles,” Erik says.

Charles’ gaze shifts to him, his eyes going soft and mouth turning up in a small smile. “Thank you, Erik,” he says, and at the same time Erik feels a soft caress across his cheek like a warm breeze, but with the distinct impression of _Charles_ behind it. “That means more than you know.”

Erik’s face starts to heat under Charles’ gaze, and he waves a hand ineffectually in an attempt to draw attention away from his blush. “It’s what anyone would say,” he protests. “Really. Everyone that meets you loves you instantly.”

“Everyone?” Charles asks, his grin turning just a bit lascivious.

“Now you’re just fishing,” Erik grumbles in reply, turning his gaze back to the board and ignoring Charles’ pleased laugh.

He seems pleased enough with himself, actually, that they remain in a comfortable silence the next few minutes, the only noise the humming of the engines as they speed towards Fhloston. Erik’s so absorbed in the game he almost doesn’t notice when Moira appears in the doorway to the common room, looking ready for a nap.

“All right,” she says. “Erik, you’re up. Wake me up in four hours when it’s my turn again, I’ll be in my room. Charles, you’re not in bed?”

Charles shakes his head. “Not tired yet,” he says. “Besides, shouldn’t Erik have someone with him on the bridge? To help him stay awake? I don’t mind.”

Moira arches an eyebrow dubiously, but makes no further comment. “Suit yourself, then,” she says. “I’m turning in.”

“Goodnight, Moira,” Charles says brightly, giving her a wave. She exits with a nod.

Sighing, Erik stands. Now that they’re alone—officially alone with everyone else either asleep or about to be—the mood seems to have changed once more. The air between them is heavy with expectation, and Charles is looking at him with those deep blue eyes of his again, considering. The expression makes Erik’s pulse beat just a little faster, and he clears his throat quickly, hoping Charles isn’t picking up on just how nervous he seems to be all of the sudden.

Erik’s never been one to be shy about what he wants, but Charles is different. The stakes are higher with him, and not just because of the mission they’re on; they’re higher because Charles is unlike anyone Erik has ever met before. He’s never formed an attachment this strong this quickly, and Erik worries in the back of his mind that he’s hurtling a hundred miles an hour towards catastrophic failure if he missteps. It’s an undisputable fact that Erik is not a people person and never has been. He’s never worried about his social ineptitude before, but now that it matters, Erik can’t help but wish he was somehow more practiced at this.

Charles, however, seems completely oblivious to Erik’s discomfort, watching him steadily as he shifts from foot to foot, trying to figure out the best way to approach the elephant in the room.

“Um,” he says at last, gesturing to the door. “Do you want to…?”

“Yes,” Charles says at once, standing and leading the way out of the common room and down the hallway towards the bridge.

When they get there, Erik sees that Moira has turned the engines down a little to save on fuel. The world outside isn’t one big white blur anymore, although they’re still moving insanely fast. He sits down in his chair, flicking his screen into active mode and running a few mandatory checks that Magneto passes with flying colors, unsurprisingly. He can feel Charles peering interestedly over his shoulder, cataloguing his every movement, and he smiles a little despite his tension.

“I’m just making sure the engines aren’t overheating and that the fuel supply is stable,” Erik narrates as he hits buttons and accepts status reports. “Moira took us out of lightspeed, you’ll have noticed, but there’s still a slim chance that we’ve overshot our capacity. She definitely already checked before she went to bed but just in case…”

“Of course,” Charles says. He leans even further over Erik’s chair so his breath tickles Erik’s ear and cheek with every exhale, and when he reaches out to point to the screen, he braces the other hand at the base of Erik’s neck. “Are those the fuel gages?”

“Yes,” Erik says. His voice has gone slightly raspy, but he tries to ignore it, focusing instead on the images on the screen. “The status bar isn’t even a fourth gone. That’s a good sign. We won’t need to stop to refuel. It’s a good thing we had the fuel plug replaced before we left, that might not have been the case otherwise.”

Charles hums his understanding and settles again on the back of Erik’s chair, his head resting on his arm and his other hand still resting against Erik’s shoulder. “I’d love to fly one of these myself one day,” he mutters, his voice slightly muffled. “The Oyemai ships were too complicated. I’ve always been chauffeured everywhere, never driving myself. It’s maddening, not being able to go where you want to go.”

“I’ll teach you then,” Erik says. “It’s not that complicated. You picked up chess so easily, I’m sure you’ll pick this up too.”

“You have such faith in me,” Charles says. His tone is teasing, but it’s also a little unsure, and Erik turns around in his seat so he’s sitting on his knees, not quite believing his ears.

“Shouldn’t I?” he asks, frowning at the sad smile he sees on Charles’ face. Charles shrugs and his frown deepens. “What’s the matter?”

Charles lets out a heavy breath, the corners of his mouth twitching downward. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” he protests quietly. “I spent my life on the Oyemai planet reading and thinking and not doing anything remotely related to saving the universe. I can tell you about abstract physics, I can tell you the entire history of the Oyemai and the Elements, I can construct a biofilter from spare Oyemai engine parts, and I can speak five languages, none of which are used in the Milky Way Galaxy. I know theoretically what I’m supposed to do when we do the ritual but I have no idea if I’ll... be enough.”

“Enough?” Erik asks, his throat going dry.

“There’s supposed to be more than one Element ideally. I think I’ll be able to stop the Dark Planet, but I don’t know if _I’ll_ … be okay,” he finishes shakily. The hand on the back of Erik’s chair clenches into a fist then releases, and Charles slumps down to bury his face in his arm.

Erik finds his heart suddenly in his throat. He feels helpless, the memory of their entire conversation from before about _what happens after_ sending a wave of anger over him for his own foolishness. Raising a hand, he brushes his fingers gently through Charles’ soft, wavy hair, pushing away the sudden barrage of morbid thoughts with more vehemence than he knew he possessed. Of course Charles is scared. Of course he’s going to be thinking these things, but Erik will prove his fears to be unfounded. They’ll get through this together.

All of them. No casualties, not while Erik’s still breathing.

“You’ll be okay,” Erik says. It’s not a reassurance, it’s a promise, and Charles looks up at that, his eyes a little red-rimmed and shiny.

“What makes you so sure?” he asks, although he sounds a little uncertain of his own uncertainty now. He searches Erik’s face, eyes flickering quickly over his features, but Erik remains more positive than ever.

“Because you were born for this,” Erik replies, his hand sliding from the back of Charles’ head to his jaw. “ _You_. Charles Xavier. Not any other Element, not any of the ones that ran your people into the ground by pretending to be Gods when they weren’t. Just you. With all your selflessness and your anxieties and your dreams and your love of potatoes.”

Charles lets out something like a laugh, and Erik smiles. “When all this is over I’m going to get you a lot in the community garden and you can cultivate all the potatoes your heart desires,” he promises, rubbing his thumb along the jutt of Charles’ jaw idly.

“ _All_ the potatoes?” Charles asks, his eyes sparkling again with happiness. He rests his hand on the back of Erik’s neck, fingers curling under the collar of Erik’s jacket to the warm skin.

“Hundreds of them. Thousands. I’ll buy the whole garden,” Erik murmurs as they drift closer, eyes fluttering shut. “Any kind of vegetable you want, that’s—”

And then Charles’ lips are on his, cutting off his words, but Erik’s not about to complain. Charles kisses him slowly, insistently, and with just as much curiosity as he’s done everything else since Erik met him. His lips are just as plush as they’ve looked all day, and when Erik tilts his head slightly to deepen the kiss, they part with a faint sigh that’s breathed into the scant space between them. The hand on the back of Erik’s neck flexes, pulling Erik even closer, and Erik makes a pleased sound that has Charles smiling against his mouth, his breath huffing out against Erik’s cheek.

Feeling bold, Erik tilts his head a bit more to nip gently at Charles’ bottom lip, soothing away any hurt a second later with his tongue. Charles sucks in a sharp breath, but immediately, he releases it in a groan that goes straight through Erik like an electric shock. He sits up a little higher on his knees in the chair, needing to be as close as humanly possible to Charles, and when he leans forward against the backrest, his cock, which is beginning to make its interest in the proceedings known, gets pressed into the cushions. Moaning, he rocks forward experimentally, half-drunk off Charles and a lack of oxygen.

“What?” Charles slurs in between sloppy kisses. He sounds just as embarrassingly disoriented as Erik, and he palms Erik’s shoulder, the other hand sliding into Erik’s hair, holding his head back gently so Charles can search his face.

“Charles,” Erik breathes. A wave of awkwardness washes abruptly over him, so to dispel it, he tips his head forward to nuzzle little eskimo kisses along the bridge of Charles’ nose as he asks, “Do you know about… about—”

“Sex?” Charles asks, saying it slowly as if he’s testing the word out, a little unsure if it’s the right one. Erik nods. “Of course I do,” Charles replies, chuckling a little and giving Erik’s lip an experimental nip. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“Um,” Erik says helpfully. “Yes.”

Charles presses another searing kiss to Erik’s lips, slipping his hand around to the front of Erik’s jacket where the zip is and giving it a quick tug. “Oh good,” he replies. “I thought so. I thought it couldn’t be _that_ different.”

Giving into Charles’ plundering mouth and hands, Erik helps him slide the zipper the rest of the way down and push the jacket off his shoulders to pool somewhere on the floor. As soon as the first garment is gone, Charles is reaching for the second, leaning down over the back of the chair awkwardly to tug the hem up so he can get his hands underneath to Erik’s twitching stomach. The muscles jump at Charles’ touch, and his hips give another abortive thrust against nothing, making him let out a quiet growl of frustration.

“Shhh,” Charles whispers, soothing his hand up and down Erik’s side gently.

They kiss slowly, almost lazily, drinking each other in. Erik gets used to ignoring his cock in favor of Charles’ lips and skin, and soon, they’ve worked Charles out of his jacket as well. It’s not the best of positions. Erik still can’t even _see_ half of Charles’ body, and his knees are starting to ache just a bit, but Erik is so busy snaking his hand up the back of Charles’ shirt that he doesn’t really have time to think of a solution… until he remembers something Charles said earlier while Erik was running his checks. Something about wanting to learn how to fly.

Grinning, he pulls back from Charles’ intoxicating mouth after one last peck, cupping a hand to Charles’ jaw to stop him from diving back in. Charles frowns immediately, little lines creasing between his eyebrows which Erik shouldn’t find as adorable as he does, but here they are.

“Why are we stopping?” Charles asks. He makes a move to lean forward but Erik goes back, stopping him with a hand to his chest and Charles’ frown deepens.

“I have an idea,” Erik says. “Didn’t you want to learn how to fly Magneto?”

“Well, yes,” Charles replies, palming unhappily at Erik’s shirt, “but that can wait. Right now I want—”

“How about you come around here,” Erik says, his grin widening tooth by tooth until it feels positively wolfish, leaning back so he’s sitting on his heels “and sit down,” he pats his thighs for emphasis, “and I’ll teach you.”

Charles’ brain seems to short-circuit, if the look on his face is anything to go by, but then all at once his eyebrows raise and his mouth drops open as a look of understanding dawns on his beautiful face. Erik just manages to catch his triumphant laugh before it can slip out, but he can’t stop his heart from hammering its victory, when Charles’ eyes go dark and his tongue sneaks out to soothe over his kiss-red lips. Charles nods slowly, running one hand through his tousled hair as he makes his way around to the front of the chair, his boots clacking against the floor. Adrenaline shoots even faster through Erik’s veins as he whips around in the chair, sitting so he’s a little towards the front, his feet planted firmly on the floor, arms on either armrest.

The console and seat are close enough together that when Charles squeezes in between them, he has to step directly between Erik’s splayed legs, his knees pressing into the seat cushion as he leans down to give Erik one last slow, wet kiss. He cups Erik’s cheek, Erik leaning into the touch, but as soon as he pulls away, he turns swiftly and settles himself into Erik’s lap unabashedly. The curve of his ass is pressed up against the obvious tent in Erik’s trousers, and Erik lets out a shaky breath, splaying a hand out on the flat plane of Charles’ stomach to pull him even closer. Charles arches slightly, humming at the moan he pulls from Erik’s throat with the motion, and tips his head back against Erik’s shoulder to nuzzle lazily at the curve of his jaw.

Erik’s mind whirls like a tornado, thinking a thousand miles a minute _I shouldn’t have done this this is the best idea I’ve ever had god this is so ridiculous_ , but Charles doesn’t seem to mind if he picks any of this up. His hand trails lazily up the side of Erik’s thigh and he nestles back a little more securely.

“So,” he says, the words muffled against Erik’s skin. “Flying lessons?”

_Fuck the flying lessons_ , Erik thinks, but when he opens his mouth he manages to choke out, “Right.”

Somehow, he shoves his almost painful erection to the back of his mind as he leans forward and takes the autopilot off by tapping the screen. Their speed and course will remain constant anyway, with the autolock still in place so there’s no danger in ruining their entire mission for the sake of carrying out a fantasy he’s quietly harbored for years. Besides, the other pilot needs to confirm any changes in navigation—a failsafe that is part of the reason why the Magneto requires two pilots to fly. He can delete any requests they make after they’ve sent it. In the past, they’ve had to run through these kinds of drills with new ensigns in training; it’s not really new to Erik.

“Okay,” Erik breathes against the curve of Charles’ neck, feeling a little of his composure return now that’s he’s in charge. “Right now we’re moving at just a few hundred thousand meters per second below lightspeed. That’ll allow us to get to Fhloston in time without burning up the engines or using all our fuel in one go.” His hand moves from the screen to the silver lever next to it. “This controls our speed. Put your hand on it.”

Charles reaches out, seemingly a bit wary, but Erik drops a kiss to the side of his neck. “It won’t move too much,” he assures him. “You need the other pilot to move theirs too in order to change how fast we go. Just test it out.”

“Okay,” Charles says quietly.

He reaches out again and this time when his hand wraps around the metal bar, it’s much more sure. He pulls the lever back slightly, then pushes it forward; it doesn’t move more than a couple inches either way, but still, Erik can palpably feel Charles’ excitement when it gives. Quietly, cautiously, Erik sinks his powers into the lever as well, so he can feel Charles’ fingers wrapped tightly around it, and immediately he has to reel them back in to keep himself from becoming even more agitated. Erik smiles against Charles’ skin.

“Excellent,” he says. “See? No harm. Now that you know how the speed works, I’ll show you how we navigate.”

Leaning forward again—Erik doesn't even attempt to bite back his groan when the movement causes him to rub against Charles—he swipes at the screen until it comes to life and hits the button that opens up the navigator. He hears a small hitch in Charles' breath, and trails his other hand down so it's resting just on the inside of Charles’ thigh. Charles sighs, jerking his hips forward and back, trying to get Erik's hand to move closer in while also keeping his ass pressed snug to Erik's front. Erik obliges him, shifting his hand from Charles leg up to cup him through his trousers, revelling in the quiet groan his efforts earn him.

"Erik," Charles sighs, tilting his head to try and catch Erik's mouth despite the awkward angle.

Erik hums, craning his neck, and he manages to press their lips together, though it's not very comfortable. "Just this," Erik breathes against Charles' mouth. "Come on, _Schatz_ ," and he's not quite sure where that endearment came from, but as soon as it leaves his mouth it feels right, so he says it again. " _Schatz_. Show me you can do this."

"Nnnffhhh," Charles says, giving one last shallow thrust against Erik's palm before he pulls himself a little more upright again to look down at the navigation screen. "Okay," he says breathlessly. "Navigation."

"Navigation," Erik agrees. He taps a button in the leftmost corner and a starmap of the Milky Way and surrounding galaxies expands to fit the screen. There are two blinking dots as well, one green one that is making its way steadily through the Milky Way, and another stationary yellow one. Erik points to the second.

"That's Fhloston," he says. "The green one is us. To expand the map, tap it twice at the galaxy you want to go to. From there you can choose the star system and then individual planets."

"Where should I take us?" Charles asks. The hand still resting on Erik's thigh skids further up, squeezing his flank affectionately.

Erik grins, dropping another kiss to the notch of bone at the base of Charles' neck. "Anywhere," he answers. "You choose."

A breathy laugh escapes Charles lips, rumbling through into Erik's chest as well. "You're going to regret giving me this much power," he says.

"Never," Erik says. With nothing else to do, the hand he’d used to open the navigation system migrates to the hand Charles has pressed against his leg and he threads their fingers together. "Make your pick."

Charles is silent for a moment, scanning through his options as he strokes the inside of Erik's index finger with his thumb. Then, determinedly, he leans forward and with his free hand, clicks open the Milky Way Galaxy, then the Solar System, then taps on Earth.

"There," he says quietly. "There's other things I want to see, too. But first I'd like to visit your mother. Since you promised."

Erik feels a great, unshakeable tugging somewhere near his rib cage, and thinks that if he wasn't more than half in love with Charles already, he would be now. This time, he's the one that draws Charles back, craning around uncomfortably so that he can seal their lips together once more in a surprisingly chaste kiss. He can feel the way Charles mouth twitches up into a smile, and when he does, he's helpless to do anything but follow suit.

"Don’t bring up my mother when you're in my lap, Charles," he mumbles.

Charles only laughs. "Sorry," he says, sounding anything but. "You did ask."

"I did," Erik admits, nosing at Charles cheek when he turns back to look out the front window as they rocket by.

"So, how'd I do?" Charles asks.

"Wonderfully," Erik says.

"It wasn't very difficult," Charles admits, one hand threading through Erik's hair so he's kept close.

Erik makes a noise of agreement. "That's just the basics. I'll teach you more when we aren't trying to get to Fhloston."

"Oh, so the hard stuff comes later, then," Charles says, and Erik can tell he's smiling.

" _That_ hard stuff, yes," Erik replies, grinding his hips up against Charles so his cock catches in the cleft between his cheeks.

Charles chokes out a shaky laugh, giving Erik's fingers an affectionate squeeze. "You're terrible," he says, turning to mumble the words against Erik's mouth. "Absolutely terrible. I don't know why I put up with you."

“Says the man who totaled my car,” Erik replies, grinning, and Charles scoffs.

“If you bring that up again I’m going to go straight to my room and not come out until we get to Fhloston,” he says, though any threat the words might have held is cancelled out when he grinds back against Erik’s cock and moans. He drops his hand from Erik’s hair and presses it up against the hand Erik still has cupped gently over his clothed cock. “Erik,” he breathes. “Much as I enjoyed the lesson…”

He doesn’t even need to finish the thought; Erik’s is already tugging at both their buckles with his powers and when those fall open, the buttons that do up the front of their trousers. Erik’s always enjoyed using his powers in bed, so when Charles drops his head down and lets out a quiet, delighted laugh as he watches his pants undo themselves, he chalks up yet another point in the column for keeping Charles around the rest of his life. Really, making note of Charles’ virtues is becoming almost irrelevant now; he seems to be doing it constantly.

Charles’ happiness radiates out from him mentally, too, catching Erik up in its drift, and he presses one last kiss to the back of Charles’ neck, nipping the skin there gently before pulling back. As pleasant as this little game has been, Erik misses watching Charles’ expressive face, and being able to kiss him without straining. When he comes—which honestly, is probably going to be soon—he wants to be able to drown in the deep blue of Charles’ eyes, to be breathing in the same air, and he wants to see what Charles will look like when he reaches his peak, too.

Almost as an afterthought, he leans forward and re-engages the autopilot with one hand while palming gently at Charles’ hip with the other. Charles seems confused about what he’s supposed to do at first, still rocking back and forth on Erik’s lap, up into their hands and back onto Erik’s cock, but then Erik projects an image of them facing one another, Charles straddling him in the chair, and Charles moans.

“Okay,” he rasps, breaking their kiss. “Okay, just let me…”

He stands shakily, bracing himself against the console, and begins to shuck out of his pants and boots. Erik takes one long moment to admire the pale curve of his ass as the fabric comes down. Briefly, he considers asking Charles just to stay that way, leaned over almost onto the front viewscreen while he kisses down the freckles dotting his spine, counting each one before nuzzling in and opening Charles up with his tongue and his fingers until Charles is flushed and boneless and sated, coming first on Erik’s fingers and then again as he rides Erik’s cock.

But he’s kidding himself if he thinks he could last that long anyway at this point. Erik files the thought away for later instead, shimmying out of his own trousers and underwear so his cock finally slips free. He doesn’t think he’s been this hard in years, and when he sees the precome at the tip, he can’t stop himself from running his thumb over it, groaning quietly and jerking up into his own hand.

“Stop,” Charles says, and Erik instantly stills, looking up.

Charles has removed his shirt as well as his pants and boots, and Erik’s mouth goes dry as his eyes scan over his entirely naked form, taking it all in with lightning speed. With a small twinge of relief, Erik sees that Charles is, in fact, built completely like a human. Erik had seen a little bit—the bandages Charles wore when he fell through Erik’s roof hardly left much to the imagination—but seeing someone’s clothed crotch is very different from seeing their very naked, very hard cock right before your eyes, barely a foot from your face. Unlike Erik, he’s uncircumcised, which Erik finds without shame to be absolutely fascinating. He doesn’t have much time to consider the new possibilities, though.

Almost as soon as Erik’s gaze travels back to his face, Charles jumps into his lap again, each knee nestled on either side of Erik’s legs in the chair, capturing Erik’s mouth in a hard, lingering kiss. He thrusts up against Erik’s cock with his own, stealing the groan that falls from Erik’s mouth, running a hand down to tug at the hem of Erik’s shirt. When he leans back to pull the fabric up Erik’s chest and arms to toss aside, Erik sees his pupils are blown so wide the blue around them is barely visible. His lips are redder than Erik ever thought possible, and he only gets one fleeting moment of seeing Charles’ white teeth bite down on the plush bottom one before his vision is obscured by grey spandex.

Erik shrugs the shirt off with a violence he didn’t know he was capable of, and when it’s gone, Charles’ chest is immediately up against his, warm and silky, as he leans in to whisper in Erik’s ear.

“Don’t touch yourself,” Charles instructs, his voice low and smooth like velvet. “If you…” he trails off, suddenly, unsure and Erik’s heart thuds loudly against his rib cage.

“Come,” he supplies, and Charles makes a noise, half frustrated and half needy.

“Come,” Charles says. “If you come before I get my hands on you—”

Erik arches up against Charles, bringing their cocks into alignment once more and Charles breaks off with a gasp, bracing his hands on Erik’s shoulders. “Then stop talking and touch me,” Erik replies, slipping one hand between them to curl around Charles’ erection and the other around to brace his lower back, cupping his ass.

Charles groans against Erik’s neck, bucking automatically into his hand before his own fingers rocket downwards to wrap around Erik. He tugs in time with his own thrusts, running his thumb along the vein just underneath Erik’s leaking slit in a way that makes Erik’s breathing go ragged. His legs already are beginning to feel like jelly and he grapples desperately for a some kind of control, absolutely one-hundred-percent unwilling to come when Charles has only just started. Somehow, he finds the composure he so desperately needs, and although with every tug of Charles’ fingers he feels his pulse beat faster, he also knows he isn’t going to topple over the edge just yet.

Charles’ mouth begins working at Erik’s neck, worrying the skin near his clavicle gently with his teeth before kissing the same spot and moving on up Erik’s neck. It’s gentle enough that it probably won’t leave a mark, but Erik can’t bring himself to give a shit either way, not when he wants to mark up every inch of Charles’ skin with his lips, to prove to the rest of the universe that Charles is _his_ and nothing and no one else’s. The thought makes him groan, and he rocks up a little harder into Charles’ hand, giving Charles’ cock a slightly rougher tug than before. Keening, Charles falls away from Erik’s neck onto his shoulder, thrusting insistently into Erik’s hand, resting his palm against Erik’s racing heart.

“Erik,” Charles sighs. “Mino minaï, Mino achan'chinou, kiba—dinoïne kan… Like that.” _Just like that._

His head whirling, Erik complies and another strangled groan rumbles up out of Charles’ throat. Feeling almost drunk, he brings the hand braced against Charles’ ass back around again, acting impulsively on another idea to ratchet Charles’ pleasure up even further, his entire being seemingly consumed with the need to make Charles feel good, to make him spill over into bliss so he forgets every doubt he’s ever had that he isn’t meant to be right here right now, with Erik, that he isn’t the best thing that’s ever happened in Erik’s life.

He brings two of his fingers to Charles’ mouth, curling them so just the tips rest against his lower lip, breath ghosting out across the tops of them. Humming, Charles drops his jaw a little more and ruts up against Erik as he draws the fingers further into his mouth with his tongue, laving at them gently. He sends a warm bundle of affection and lust at Erik, and Erik has to scramble to keep his control in the wake of it. But he does—just barely—and when he regains himself a bit more, Erik begins to thrust his fingers softly in and out of Charles’ mouth, thrusting up more quickly into the hand still steadily working him as well.

It isn’t long before Erik decides his fingers are wet enough, and when he withdraws them to wrap his arm back around Charles’ waist, Charles picks his head up off Erik’s shoulder to press their mouths together once more, his tongue tangling with Erik’s, drawing a long, pleased moan from him. They pull back for just a moment, just to breathe, and when Erik lets his eyes flicker open, he sees Charles already looking at him, the high blush on his cheekbones illuminated by the stars outside the windscreen and the soft light blue of the control panel.

He smiles, slow and lazy, and Erik finds himself wishing he had a photographic memory, although it might actually be impossible for him to forget the sight anyway. He’ll carry this image behind his eyelids until the end of time; Charles on his lap, bathed in starlight, his eyes so piercingly blue and lips so obscenely red as he grins down at Erik, stealing Erik’s breath away. His pale skin, dotted here and there with an impossible amount of freckles, glistens with sweat, and his eyes dance as they meet Erik’s, soft and blue and happy. Erik’s never seen anything so beautiful in his life, and as soon as he the thought forms, he knows Charles has caught it, because his smile softens, and his blush deepens ever so slightly.

“If you think all that about me, you should see yourself,” he whispers.

Abruptly, he does, but through Charles’ eyes, which he’s sure can’t be functioning properly. His hair is tousled from Charles’ hands, little red marks dotting the skin of his throat and chest where Charles had worried it with his teeth, and his mouth is slack as he pants harshly through it. His eyes, he sees through Charles’, are almost completely dark, with just a sliver of blue-grey around the edges, but angled as he is towards the viewscreen, all the stars are reflected back in them, turning his pupils into a constellation.

The image fades, Charles’ smiling face swimming back into view, but Erik’s throat is still dry with the force of the emotions he felt accompanying it. Everything Erik feels, everything Erik _has_ felt about Charles, is reflected back at him a million fold, echoing love and protectiveness and joy into every corner of his mind. He takes in a ragged breath, pulling Charles down to him again, kissing him hungrily—greedily almost—needing him to know how much he means what he feels for him. Charles must know this already, though, because he smiles against Erik’s lips, nuzzling against his nose.

Satisfied, Erik nips at Charles’ lip, slipping his fingers down and in until they brush gently against his hole. Charles sucks in a breath, tensing a little, but immediately, he relaxes once more, sighing as Erik’s index finger begins to circle him, his hips canting into Erik’s other hand before he rocks back again. Erik goes slowly, grinning against Charles’ mouth as he feels his breath quicken and even more precome dribble out over Erik’s knuckles. Charles’ mind surrounds him like a warm blanket, and he moans happily, giving Charles another chaste kiss as he presses his finger in, barely past the first knuckle.

Charles shouts, jerking against him, and Erik stills at once, but then Charles is thrusting back against the intrusion, his lips sloppy against Erik’s, trying to kiss him, but there’s more breath than kiss exchanged. The hand on Erik’s cock speeds up, Charles obviously trying to work him into just as much of a frenzy, and Erik decides that the jig is up. He ruts up hard into Charles’ hand, forcing Charles a little further back onto his fingers with the motion, and moans when he feels Charles clench down around them. He jerks Charles’ cock in earnest now, hardly even caring that they’ve fallen out of rhythm together, twisting his fingers in Charles’ ass, trying desperately to see if he can find his prostate.

On top of him, Charles is a panting, writhing mess. His hand moves frantically between them as he tries to get Erik off first, rolling his own hips so Erik’s fingers go even deeper inside him, brushing up against a spot that makes him cry out again. He whines against Erik’s lips almost petulantly, pressing his thumb to Erik’s slit before running it just under the head and Erik shouts, too, bucking up blindly to chase the feeling.

_Not yet not yet not yet not yet_ he thinks desperately, giving Charles’ cock one more firm tug as he rubs his fingers over that spot inside him again.

Above him, Charles throws his head back, his whole spine arching and mouth falling open as he comes so hard semen hits Erik’s chest. Erik doesn’t have much time to enjoy the sight though—as soon as he sees Charles’ head falling back, he’s following him over, shouting far too loudly as he spurts, hot and sticky over Charles’ fingers and stomach. He feels almost as if he’s being turned inside out, not knowing where Charles’ pleasure stops and his begins, and honestly, not really caring. All he can do is clutch onto Charles, breathing into his neck as the last aftershocks of his orgasm wash over him.

When he comes to, he realizes the both of them are shivering as they lean heavily against each other. Charles’ arms are wrapped around Erik’s shoulders, fingers shaking as they card into his hair. The curve of his jaw is pressed to Erik’s cheek, his breath ghosting out across Erik’s temple. Erik tips his head, nosing at the bone there, and Charles lets out a soft noise in response, shifting down to kiss him, lingering, but close-mouthed and gentle.

As carefully as possible, Erik withdraws his fingers and Charles sighs quietly against his lips, relaxing a bit more so he’s sitting on top of Erik’s thighs rather than braced above them. He gives Erik one firm kiss, then pulls back, his eyelids heavy as he looks up at Erik, but the corners of his mouth are also twitching upwards into a smile, and the expression sends another jolt through Erik.

“So,” Charles says, his voice just this side of scratchy. “That was…”

“Yeah,” Erik says, laughing a little. He soothes his hand up Charles’ side, petting him just as Charles’ fingers continue to card their way through Erik’s hair. “Glad I’m not the only one at a loss for words.”

Charles chuckles, warm and deep in his chest. “Yes,” he says. “Although I have to say, much as I enjoyed myself, I’m starting to feel a little….”

“Sticky?” Erik offers.

“Yes,” Charles says, nodding. “And… well not sore, exactly, but something like that. I should probably go clean up before my legs decide to give out.”

Reluctantly, Erik helps him untangle himself from the chair, bracing Charles’ arms as he stands so he doesn’t knock into the console. When he’s on his feet, Charles leans down and gives Erik one last kiss before crouching and scooping up his discarded clothing, holding it off to the side, carefully away from his still sticky front. He seems completely unfazed by his own nudity, sighing in a sort of put-upon way as he stands there, looking down at the mess on his stomach and chest. Erik almost wants to laugh again at the sight, but he stops himself, not sure if Charles would take it in a way he doesn’t mean.

“Well,” Charles says decisively. “I guess I’ll go and use the shower then.”

Erik reaches down and shimmies back into his trousers, doing them up with a casual flick of his powers before grabbing his shirt that had gotten flung off to the side. “I’ll come with you for a minute,” he says. “The ship will be okay on it’s own for a bit, I just need a washcloth.”

It’s a bit awkward, sneaking through the Magneto in the wee hours of the morning like a couple of teenagers out after curfew, Charles still buck naked, but they make it to Erik’s room without hassle. Immediately, Erik goes into the small ensuite—one of the many perks of being a co-captain of the ship—and grabs a thin washcloth from beside the sink. He wets it, then quickly uses it to wipe down, Charles padding into the room behind him to watch. Seeing him in the mirror, Erik smiles fondly before he can stop himself.

“Go ahead and turn on the shower,” Erik says. “Do you know how to use it?”

Charles shakes his head, but he squeezes past Erik and steps into the stall anyway, dropping his clothes just outside. “Is it this thing here?” he asks, already reaching for the dial.

“Yeah,” Erik says, quickly reaching out to stop him before he can turn it. “But step out of the shower so you can adjust the temperature before the water hits you full-on. The farther to the right from center it goes, the hotter the water gets. Usually I put it just there—” he taps a spot next to the dial almost all the way to the right “—but I like hot showers. To turn it off just push it in again. Got it?”

“Got it,” Charles says, nodding as he frowns down at the dial.

“Alright,” Erik replies, giving Charles’ wrist a quick squeeze before he lets go. “I’ll be down on the bridge when you’re done. Or you can go to bed. Your choice.”

Charles makes a vague noise of affirmation and seeing he’s absorbed in the shower, Erik takes his leave.

Alone again, Erik lets his mind wander as he makes his way down to the bridge. He spools his power out idly and feels the hum of the engines still going strong, although he hadn’t expected anything else, and it’s with a careless sort of happiness that he practically skips down the stairs. Pulling on his shirt once more, he steps onto the bridge again, picking up his discarded jacket and tugging it on, too. Maybe it’s just because he knows what just happened in here a few minutes ago, right in his chair, but Erik feels like something in the atmosphere is different now. Before he sits down, he takes a peek at the upholstering, but no, they hadn’t left any stains, at least that he can see right now. He hopes that any scent of sex that still lingers will have dissipated by the time Moira comes back down for her shift.

Sighing, Erik flops heavily back into his chair. A brief glance at the screens shows that nothing had changed while he and Charles were upstairs. All is as it should be. Satisfied, he leans back against the surprisingly comfortable cushions and closes his eyes. Now that he has time to actually sit and register it, Erik realizes how tired he is. He’s been awake almost twenty hours now, and although that’s far from the longest amount of time he’s gone without sleep, he’s starting to feel it.

Especially this far out in deep space, it’s difficult for the body to stay on a normal schedule, and once the lethargy begins to set in it settles in fast and hard. There’s still a little over two hours before Moira’s supposed to take over. It’s probably a bad idea to nap in the interim, but if anything goes wrong, the alarm will go off anyway, and they won’t have to make any more adjustments to their speed until they’re in Fhloston’s sun system, which won’t be until the last shift. He settles in a little more surely against the back of the chair, stretching his legs out in front of him until he hits the underside of the console, and lets his mind wander.

He’s been drifting in and out for an indeterminate amount of time when he hears someone pad into the bridge. Thinking it’s Charles, he pokes his head up over the top of the chair and is surprised when instead he sees Raven dressed in her pajamas, looking around as if she’s uncertain she should be here. As soon as she sees Erik, though, she gives a little wave and a half smile and comes around to sit in Moira’s chair, staring out of the front window at the stars as they flash by.

“Hey,” she says, her voice scratchy with sleep.

“Hey,” Erik replies, settling back down in his seat. “Didn’t expect to see you awake yet.”

“Me either,” she says with a small sigh. “But I went to bed at a reasonable hour, unlike you. And I just don’t think my body’s adjusted to space flight yet.”

Erik makes a considering noise. “Well, that’s not something you’ll have to worry about anyway. We’ll be in Fhloston in ten hours, then I guess we’ll just turn around as soon as we have the stones. You’ll be back on Earth time before you know it.”

A quiet snort comes from the chair next to him and Erik looks over. Raven’s still staring out the window, her arms crossed in front of her, a disbelieving look on her face. She shakes her head, chuckling quietly.

“Magic stones, ancient rituals.” She turns and gives Erik a sly look, raising an eyebrow. “Never thought when I agreed to be friends with you, Lehnsherr, that this is where we’d end up.”

Erik grins. “Who said it was _you_ who agreed to be friends with _me_?” he shoots back, and Raven laughs again, relaxing against the seat at last.

“Fine,” she says. “Maybe it was a mutual burden.”

They fall silent, and after a bit, Erik lets his eyes slip closed again. Even with Raven here it’s getting harder and harder to stave off his sleepiness now that he’s admitted to it. But Raven seems alert enough, from what he can tell. He remembers his first few trips off planet and how disorienting it had been; he isn’t surprised to find she’s having trouble adjusting to the change, too. Erik, on the other hand, is rapidly drifting towards sleep when she speaks up once more.

“This might be a silly question,” she says quietly, “but I mean… you believe all this, right? As crazy as it sounds, you believe it?”

She sounds more expectant than Erik would have thought, and he looks over to see her staring at him, biting uncertainly at her bottom lip. Erik swallows, considering his answer. He pushes himself up so he’s not slouching in his spot anymore and shrugs.

“Well, yes,” he says simply. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. Would you?”

Raven smiles, turning to face forward again. “Nah,” she says, and Erik smiles again too.

He’s about to go back to dozing when he hears another set of bare feet against the floor, and without even turning, he knows it’s Charles. There’s something already familiar about the cadence of his steps that Erik didn’t even know he’d picked up on, but apparently he did, and when he hears Charles pause halfway across the floor, he merely reaches back a hand without looking and waits until the footsteps start up again and he feels Charles’ palm warm against his to reel the hand back in. When he does, there’s a very sleepy looking Element attached to it, and he frowns slightly in disapproval.

“Why didn’t you go to bed?” he asks.

Charles steps in closer taking Erik’s hand to cradle gently between both of his own. “I didn’t want to leave you alone,” he says. “I told Moira I’d help keep you awake.”

“You can’t help keep me awake if you’re half-asleep yourself,” Erik replies, wondering if maybe he should be embarrassed by how obviously smitten he sounds since Raven is right there, but she doesn’t seem at all fazed by what she sees when she turns in her seat.

“Both of you should go to bed,” she says abruptly. “You’re clearly exhausted. Neither one of you is fit to be anywhere else right now. I can come and get you or Moira if something goes wrong.”

Erik’s knee-jerk reaction is to frown deeper and open his mouth, ready to protest. Magneto is his baby. He knows Raven’s never had flying lessons; it would be irresponsible to leave the ship in the hands of someone with no experience, especially, he thinks, when they’re on a mission to save the entire universe. If something should go wrong… but then again, he was just going to try and fall asleep at the console anyway. With the computers locked into Fhloston, and with the ship still traveling through uninhabited space for several more hours, there’s no imminent danger of getting lost or running into unwanted company.

Erik supposes there is a slim possibility that they’re being followed by the same D’Khantuun that shot Charles down, but even if they were, Erik knows D’Khantuun ships and none of them are fast enough to keep up with Magneto. Having someone on the bridge really is more of a formality than anything else. If something were to go wrong, Raven could always alert either him or Moira and they’d be there in an instant. In fact, it probably would be a better idea for Erik to try and get some rest in: too long without sleep and his reaction times will be dangerously slow anyway, should any trouble arise.

“Okay,” Erik says at last, reaching out to turn on his console. “Just let me do a few checks.”

Carefully, he runs through the routine engine and fuel scans. Everything’s holding steady and their course remains clear. Just to be safe, Erik does a wider scan of the area, but Magneto’s sensors don’t detect anything for thousands of miles around. Any remaining doubts fall away from him and he nods, locking the screen once more, reassured that they’ll be okay for the next few hours until Moira takes her shift.

“If anything so much as beeps at you funny, come and wake me up,” Erik says seriously. “Otherwise it’s Moira’s turn at six-hundred hours. If she doesn’t come down—”

“Yes, yes, I’ve got it, Erik,” Raven cuts in, waving him off impatiently. “I’m not going to let your precious ship get blown up on my watch. I’ll take care of this, I’ll take care of Moira. Go to bed. Charles, please take him away.”

Charles smiles and takes Erik’s hand again, tugging him to his feet. “Gladly,” he says. “Come on, eto’achan’chinout. Raven, good night.”

“‘Night,” Raven replies with a nod, turning around to face the front screen.

Without any further protest, Erik allows himself to be pulled to his feet and led back to his quarters. As soon as the door to the bedroom closes, Charles reels Erik in for a soft kiss, pushing Erik’s jacket from his shoulders to pool on the floor as he walks them towards the bed. Erik makes a quiet, involuntary noise and feels Charles smile against his lips in response, but a second later, Charles breaks away again just as the mattress bumps the side of Erik’s knee. The hands Charles had fisted at the front of Erik’s shirt relax, and Charles looks up at him unsurely for a moment.

“Can I… If you’d like me to sleep somewhere else, I can,” he says, though the way his thumb is rubbing across Erik’s collar bone doesn’t do a lot to inspire nonchalance.

Erik pauses for just a second. It’s been ages since he shared a bed with someone, longer still since he shared it with someone he actually cared about; but then again, he’s never felt for anyone the way he feels about Charles. It would be against every fibre of his nature to send Charles away, no matter how much Moira and Raven might tease them for it later, should they come to the door. _Fuck it_ , Erik thinks, leaning in to kiss Charles.

“Stay,” he answers.

Charles smiles. “All right.”

Since the Magneto is never flown by anyone else, Erik always keeps a few extra sets of clothing in chest of drawers across from the bed, a fact for which he is eminently grateful now as he pulls out two pairs standard issue pajamas—one for him and one for Charles. The flight suits, clingy and covered in fastenings, aren’t the most comfortable of things to sleep in if you have the choice of something else. Wordlessly, they change into the new clothes, Erik finishing first and sliding underneath the warm, soft blankets, leaving plenty of space for Charles, who follows a second later. He curls up against Erik’s side and rests his head on Erik’s shoulder, and with a quick wave of his fingers, Erik plunges the room into darkness, save for the clock projected on the wall next to them which glows a dim green.

It’s peaceful. More peaceful than Erik could have ever imagined feeling twenty-four hours ago, and he feels the corners of his mouth twitch into a smile as his eyes slip closed. Charles must catch some of the sentiment because he makes a soft, pleased humming noise and drops one last kiss to Erik’s shoulder.

“Goodnight, Erik,” Charles says, his smile evident in his voice.

“Goodnight, Charles,” Erik replies.

And before he knows it, he’s fallen asleep.

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

Tired as he is, Charles only ends up sleeping for a couple of hours. In the remaining time of Erik’s off-duty shift, Charles finds himself lying awake, watching Erik sleep, while a growing sense of sickening of dread churns in his stomach.

He’s in love with Erik. Under any other circumstances, Charles thinks his chest might be bursting with joy, heart singing. He still feels that way now, only at the same time there’s a heavy weight on him, dragging him back down to the unavoidable reality of their situation: Charles’ duty, first and foremost, is to saving the Earth, and no matter how confident Erik is in him, Charles has no way of knowing he’ll survive to walk away, or even if he’ll be enough.

Does it make him terribly selfish, then, for wanting this? For wanting Erik? Charles can hardly keep his eyes off Erik, and the way Erik’s face has gone smooth and slack in sleep, erasing some of the lines across his forehead and face, making him appear even younger than he already is. Erik is loose and relaxed where he’s curled around Charles, and while Charles knows Erik thinks he’s being protective, Charles can also sense the way Erik trusts Charles in return—has always trusted him, since the beginning, with the way he’d accepted Charles’ admittedly crazy story and was willing to drop everything in order to help.

It’s enough to send Charles’ heart creeping up into his throat, because it’s dawned on him what he’s going to have to do, in order to be fair to Erik—Charles is going to have to abandon Erik, and the rest of his new friends, in order to be able to carry out his mission.

It’s the only way, Charles has come to realize as he watches Erik’s face, head pillowed on Erik’s bicep and his body still thrumming with the aftershocks of pleasure from Erik’s intimate touch. He’ll never be able to go through with the ceremony, and throw himself into the unknown, with the attachments he’s formed with everyone here on this ship.

Especially Erik. Erik, who Charles suspects, may love him back.

The thought fills him with trembling longing, but beneath it is crushing desolation. He has no business loving Erik, or leading Erik on into loving him. Because if the ceremony goes wrong, and Charles fails, or even if the ceremony is successful, but at the cost of Charles’ life…

There’s no way for him to be certain, but Charles is unable to shake the terrible certainty. The Dark Planet is a powerful entity, and the Elemental ceremony is an ancient one. It might very well come at the cost of Charles’ existence, and he can’t do that to Erik. Or he can, if it means Erik’s continued survival, continued _life_ , but Charles also doesn’t want Erik to be hung up on him for the rest of it. He needs to be able to move on, and be happy.

If Erik were awake, Charles already knows what he’d say. He’d get snappish, and say Charles has no business deciding things for him, for them. It makes Charles smile just thinking about it, heart already aching. He’s tempted to reach up between them and touch Erik’s cheek, but he doesn’t want to wake him yet. He just wants to watch him for a little while longer, and soak up the feeling of being close, entwined as they are beneath the covers on the cramped little bed. They’re both out of their league, Charles thinks ruefully, Erik as a human being in the midst of a centuries-old power struggle, and himself as an Element trying to sample a taste of the simplicity of regular people. None of this should be happening, but it is.

And how Charles longs for it. He hadn’t been lying to Erik when he’d told him about his wish to travel, to see every corner of the galaxy and beyond. Charles doesn’t want to be the last hope of the free peoples. He’d much rather be just Charles.

Erik shifts slightly in his sleep, brow furrowing as if he’s the telepath here, and is somehow overhearing Charles’ thoughts. The arm slung over Charles’ flank tenses slightly, and Charles has to smile when he’s pulled slightly closer to Erik, as if they already weren’t close enough. Feeling daring, he turns his head and presses a light kiss to Erik’s shoulder, a direct mirror of the kiss he’d given earlier when Erik was still awake, and Erik settles, forehead smoothing out again and his arm slowly going limp.

They have until the end of the trip to Fhloston, Charles decides. Once they get there, Erik, Raven, and Moira will be safe with the masses, and he can enlist Logan’s help to find the stones and figure out a way back to Earth for the ceremony. Logan will understand; he’s just here to do his duty too. And maybe Erik will think Charles has betrayed him, but at least Erik will be safely out of the way from any harm.

Because if he knows Erik is safe, then maybe Charles will be able to successfully complete the ceremony, to ensure Erik stays that way forever.

With that decided, the uneasiness in Charles’ gut isn’t entirely sated but at least he’s able to drift, close to dozing but still aware enough for his mind to drift around Erik’s, like a planet in orbit.

He already feels millions of miles away.

 

*

 

Six hours of sleep doesn’t feel like quite enough, especially after the rude awakening of having Moira buzz him from the bridge when it’s time for them to switch shifts again. Erik nearly smacks Charles in the face when he’s jolted out of what has to have been REM sleep, and then he has to deal with Moira grinning at him smugly through the vid screen as she takes in how tightly Erik and Charles are curled together in bed.

“Very cute,” she drawls, and if Erik could reach her he’d be tempted to strangle her, “just letting know that you have fifteen more minutes until we switch.” Then she cuts the line before Erik can think of anything snappy to retort with, the screen going blank again.

Erik buries his face in his pillow and groans.

“Good morning,” Charles says beside him, sounding tentatively amused, “if that counts?” A small tendril of thought slips into Erik’s mind, asking, _Everything alright?_

“I probably could’ve used sixteen hours of sleep rather than six,” Erik confesses, but he lifts his head again, and swallowing back a split second’s worth of hesitation, tugs Charles the last bit of distance closer and kisses him, morning breath be damned. _Everything’s fine, how are you?_

Charles kisses him for a moment before abruptly breaking it off, looking somewhere over Erik’s shoulder. “I’m fine.” He’s smiling, but it seems slightly off, not entirely matching up with the lightness of his tone.

Erik frowns. “Did you sleep okay?” Sleeping on spaceships can be rough the first few times, as it’s easy for the body’s internal clock to be completely thrown off by the lack of being on a planet revolving around a sun. Charles is an Element, though, so Erik suspects his levels of tolerance must be different than a human’s, and he’s obviously traveled through space before.

“Just fine,” Charles says, meeting his gaze. His smile grows a little warmer, the sort of fond expression on his face the one Erik has embarrassingly gotten used to, so Erik chalks the distance up to morning breath after all. “Will there be trouble since Moira saw us?”

“Moira can shove it,” Erik assures him, and it’s Charles’ turn to frown.

“Shove it where?” he asks, a little bit mystified, and Erik would kiss him all over again if it hadn’t been established Charles is evidently greatly opposed to morning breath.

“Just an expression, sorry,” he says, unable to help grinning, and something in him relaxes a little when Charles tentatively grins back.

Neither of their grins lasts, however, as Charles carefully places one hand against Erik’s cheek, studying him surprisingly solemnly for so early in the not-morning, and Erik blinks a few times in an attempt to clear the heavy sleep from his eyes. He tries to think back on everything he did and said before they went to sleep, trying to discern what could be wrong.

“Was it too much?” he blurts before he can stop himself, inwardly cringing. Charles had seemed nothing if not completely enthusiastic back on the bridge, but Erik will never forgive himself if Charles had felt obligated or coerced.

“No,” Charles says quickly, fortunately on the same page as him. He leans forward to brush his lips against Erik’s, before kissing him fully again, one hand sliding up to tangle in Erik’s hair. _It was perfect. You are perfect._

Somewhat mollified, Erik allows the kiss to continue, and for a few minutes they lose themselves in the motions, lips sliding together while their legs grow more and more tangled, until Erik is nearly panting against Charles’ cheek as Charles grinds against his thigh with a soft whimper. When he forces his eyes open he can see Charles’ pupils have dilated, large with arousal, and he’s willing to bet he himself looks much the same—and as much as he’d love to carry on with this, Moira _will_ skin him if he’s not up on the bridge on time.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Erik mumbles as he slides his leg out from between Charles’ and Charles makes a small noise of confused disappointment, “I have to be fair to Moira.” He strokes Charles’ side, trying to get his own head straight. “You can go back to sleep, or you can come with me.”

It takes Charles a couple seconds to calm himself down, drawing in a few deep breaths, and watching his expression Erik can see Charles visibly muster his control. “I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind someone sitting with you.”

“I think it’s well established I will never mind your company,” Erik says with a small, self-deprecating laugh, but Charles merely quirks another half-smile again, back to being oddly serious again.

“Well, we might as well get changed,” Erik says into the silence, “since we should be finally arriving in Fhloston during this shift.”

Charles nods, climbing out of bed so Erik can get out as well, and heading over to the dresser, though he doesn’t open it. Erik frowns slightly as he watches Charles walk away. Something has definitely changed in the interval between sleeping and waking, though what it is, Erik can’t for the life of him figure out. He stands next to Charles, wrapping an arm tentatively around his waist as he pulls the top drawer filled with shirts open with his powers, and to his relief, Charles leans into him. At random, Erik pulls one of the shirts free from the pile—a plain black turtleneck—and a pair of plain slacks as well.

“We’ll look out of the place with the uniforms,” he says, dropping a quick kiss to the top of Charles’ head before twisting away and heading to the bathroom. “Feel free to take any of the clothes you want. I’ve got to shower before we go down.”

“All right,” Charles calls, now absorbed in the clothing.

Erik stands in the doorway for just a second longer, unable to tear himself away from the sight of Charles in his pajamas, staring scrutinizingly down at Erik’s wardrobe. But he has less than five minutes to get ready now, and at last he forces himself to step all the way into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

He’s done with his shower in record time, sparing barely another minute to comb his hair and brush his teeth before he’s pulling on his clothes and stumbling out the bathroom door again. To his surprise, Charles is already gone when he spills into the bedroom, but he quickly shakes himself, throwing on his boots and using his power to zip them up as he exits the bedroom. There’s no way Charles could have gotten lost. He’s probably just already down in the cockpit.

Finally decent, Erik steps out into the hallway, closing his door with a casual flick of his ability before heading downstairs. For a second, he thinks absentmindedly about grabbing an instant breakfast from the small kitchenette, but It’s probably too late for that now. If he’s even so much as a minute late, Moira will be pissed, he’s sure of it; especially since she saw them in bed together this morning. He doesn’t want her to think that he’s going to compromise the mission by being too love-sick.

He’s almost at the door to the cockpit when he has the thought, and it makes him pull up short. Almost twenty-four hours ago he didn’t even know Charles. Could he have seriously fallen for him so completely in so short an amount of time? It seems impossible, and yet… And yet when he remembers back to the previous day—the way Charles had smiled at him over the chessboard, his genuine, unbridled enthusiasm for every new thing he’d tried on Earth, the way he had felt moving against Erik, the warm wet slide of his lips on Erik’s skin—Erik can’t imagine a universe where he wouldn’t have fallen for Charles. He was powerless from the second Charles crashed through his roof.

Smiling and shaking his head, Erik turns down the short hallway and steps into the cockpit. The first thing he sees is Charles sitting in his pilot chair, and his grin widens despite his best efforts, his pulse quickening just the slightest bit. Charles is chatting amiably with Moira, a half-eaten parfait on one of his knees and an untouched one on the other, but the second Erik enters, he pauses and swivels around. Seeing Erik, he stands, an inscrutable expression passing over his features for just a moment before he smiles softly and holds out the full parfait cup.

“Thanks,” Erik says, letting their fingers brush gently as he takes it.

“You’re just in time, Lehnsherr,” Moira says. “Come over here and let’s take her down another notch. We just entered Angel’s sun system a minute ago, and we can’t go over 90,000. There’s a shitton of traffic here, too; that Diva lady _must_ be popular.”

“Roger that,” Erik answers, letting his arms brush Charles’ as he steps around him to take his seat. “You might want to hold onto something, Charles. Sometimes it can be a little jarring.”

“Roger that,” Charles echoes confidently, coming over to stand behind Erik’s chair, grabbing onto the back of it.

Erik fights back another grin and sets his parfait between his legs, hovering his hand over the accelerator. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Moira do the same.

“One, two,” she says, and on the silent count of three they both draw their throttles back.

There’s a little jolt as the engines slow, just enough to make it apparent to the others throughout the ship that something must have happened, but the cup between Erik’s thighs hardly moves at all and Charles’ hand almost immediately disappears from the back of Erik’s chair. Beside him, Moira grunts approvingly. She hits a few more buttons on her screen, doing the routine checks she must complete before leaving the pilot’s chair, and standing when nothing is out of the ordinary.

“I’m gonna go grab breakfast and take another nap,” she says, stretching her arms up above her until something pops. “Call me when we get close. Try not to have too much fun, boys.”

Her smile is knowing as she trains it on the both of them, and Erik feels a momentary spike of guilt for shirking his duties last night, even though nothing had gone wrong. He nods back at her, not quite able to meet her eye again, and she snorts out a quiet laugh and something that sounds suspiciously like the word “hopeless” before turning and heading out the door.

As her boots clack away, Erik busies himself with running his own engine and fuel checks. The engines are fine—which Erik technically already knew; he’d feel it if anything were wrong with his baby—and the fuel gauge, though a little more than half empty now, is definitely on track for getting to Fhloston on time. They’ll just need to top up before they head back to Earth.

While Erik’s working, Charles makes his way around to Moira’s chair and sits, staring out the front window, taking in the view. Way off in the far left corner a bright orange planet is looming. It’s hundreds of thousands of miles away, and they won’t be coming anywhere near it, but out in the vastness of space, it’s easy to spot. Erik watches out of the corner of his eye as Charles stares at the planet, eating the last of his breakfast quietly as he thinks. He’s obviously very intensely focused on something, but Erik decides not to pry. He rather thinks he knows what it is that’s occupying Charles’ thoughts, anyway.

The computer beeps its completion as Erik accepts the last of the internal scans and turns his attention to his breakfast. The noise breaks whatever trance Charles has been in, and he turns back to Erik, watching him as he digs in.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d like, but Raven was eating this when I went into the kitchen and it looked good enough.”

“It’s great, Charles,” Erik says. He reaches across the space between them and closes his fingers around Charles’ wrist. “Thank you.”

Charles smiles briefly again, resting his hand on top of Erik’s and turning out to the front viewscreen. They’re silent for a while. Erik finishes up his breakfast with one hand while holding onto Charles’ with the other, and the both of them simply watch as the stars and planets zip by. It’s peaceful in a way Erik knows the next few hours probably won’t be, but despite the high stakes, Erik feels confident. There have been no D’Khantuun ships following them—no one at all following them, in fact—and aside from the small hiccup with the officer when they first took off, everything else has been literally smooth sailing.

Almost an hour into his shift Raven enters. “Morning,” she says, striding right up to the window. She whistles. “Wow. Getting to crunch time, huh?”

“I doubt we’ll have to crunch anything,” Charles says at the same time that Erik replies, “Just three more hours.”

Raven turns, smirking at the both of them, one eyebrow raised. “Well, if you need anything crunched, I’m your girl, Charles.”

Charles blushes, obviously aware that he’s not quite followed her train of thought. “Thank you,” he says sheepishly.

“Everything is going to be fine,” Erik says, giving Charles’ hand a quick squeeze. “Nobody’s following us, and thanks to your quick thinking, Raven, even the government is keeping their nose out of it. No one needs to be crunched.”

“Yet,” Raven replies sagely.

Erik doesn’t dignify her response with an answer, and the room falls silent again, Raven turning to smile out the front viewscreen. A few minutes later, the computer lets out a quiet beep and a message flashes across the screen. Erik sits up, his eyes flying over the text, but it’s nothing to be too worried about: just a standard notification that they’ll be heading through a small asteroid belt in a few minutes. He should grab Moira, since it takes the two of them to steer, and if need be, to fire on anything that might be in their way.

“What is it?” Raven asks.

“Asteroid belt,” Erik says. “We need Moira.”

Charles sits up, chewing at his lip. “Anything serious?”

“No, Charles,” Erik replies immediately, giving him a reassuring smile as he clicks open the comm link to Moira’s bedroom. “Just a chance for us to finally show off a bit.”

He hears a quiet, “Yesss” from Raven and his smile widens, reflecting back at him for just a moment as the comm screen opens up. Then a second later, he’s staring at Moira’s wall and the back of her head as she dozes.

“Moira?” he calls, and the figure in the bed jerks awake.

“What is it?” she asks, turning and wiping the sleep from her eyes as she sits up.

“Asteroid belt,” he says. “Shouldn’t take more than a minute.”

Moira nods, waving her hand dismissively. “I’ll be down in a sec,” she says, and the screen goes blank again.

“Strap in, you two,” Erik says over his shoulder as he pulls up all the relevant command prompt screens so they’re ready and waiting for Moira’s arrival, “you’re going to enjoy this.”

 

*

 

Sebastian Shaw is not having a good day.

For one thing, his search for the stones is not going swimmingly. After spending several hours running repeatedly into dead ends, he’d ultimately had to call up the Dark Planet, which is easier said than done— _you_ try telephoning a giant, angry rock and see how that goes for you—and beg for assistance, which hadn’t been given lightly. At least he knows where the stones are now, and how to go about locating them once he gets there. But for another thing, shortly after hanging up with the Dark Planet Shaw discovered Emma and Azazel have eloped, disappearing off to who knows where to do who knows what.

This is fine. Everything is fine.

“No matter,” Shaw says aloud to himself as he fiddles with the navigational dial of his ship. Or at least he thinks that’s the navigational dial. He’s never had to drive it himself before. Important people are usually chauffeured. “Once I have the stones, the Dark Planet will reward me beyond all measures. Emma will try to come crawling back, but I’ll turn her down. That will show her.”

( _I am never coming back,_ Emma’s note had read, but Shaw had chosen not to read that line. She’ll definitely be back.)

His ship is currently clipping along smoothly towards a planet called Fhloston. There’s been a lot of uproar about Fhloston in the news lately, actually, but Shaw has always considered himself well above trivial things such as pop culture. Popular destination or not, it’s where the stones are, so that’s where he’s headed, along with the D’Khantuun who he sent in front of him to do most of the dirty work first. Some Diva or another has them, which just goes to show you how useless pop culture really is. The stones, wasting away in the possession of some airheaded singer!

“Disgraceful,” Shaw murmurs, casting a baleful eye out across the galaxy at large. It really ought to be ashamed of itself, for allowing these kinds of things to happen.

While the autopilot works on getting him to Fhloston, Shaw has been putting some time into considering his options. Once he’s been rewarded by the Dark Planet, he’ll almost be like a king. He’d better have some decrees ready, in that case, because what kind of king doesn’t start out with some kind of decree? Honestly.

 _Sunday Funday_ , he types out carefully on his console screen. Then he has to take a break, though, because his fingers are starting to cramp from all this hard work.

“How far away from Fhloston are we now?” Shaw asks the computer, carefully spritzing his hands with relaxing perfume.

“Five hours,” the computer answers, just as serenely as it has the last four hundred and twenty-three times he’s asked. It’s keeping a little tally down in the bottom corner of the screen. Shaw has his suspicions that it’s possible he’s being mocked.

“Good,” he says anyway, rubbing his hands together. It’s mostly to rub the perfume in, but as a bonus it also makes him seem like a supervillain rubbing his hands together as he carries out his dastardly plots. He likes it. He’d add a nice solid laugh, too, but the last time he’d tried the computer had flashed a giant thumbs-down at him. Gloating seems to be allowed, though, which is more his style anyway. “ _Perfect._ ”

 

*

 

Charles is on the edge of his seat as they hurtle through the darkness, asteroids looming up suddenly in front of them. Just as soon as it appears, either Erik or Moira jerk their hands over their navigation screens, and the Magneto careens to the side or over the top of the obstruction before another asteroid appears in front of them and the whole process starts over again. It all happens in mere seconds, but Charles isn’t frightened at all. Erik had mentioned that he and Moira were two of the best pilots in the entire fleet, and Charles knew this was no false bravado.

Beside him, Raven is crowing with delight, her arms up in the air so she jerks even more forcefully with each wrench of the ship than Charles, whose grip is white-knuckled on his chair. Erik and Moira direct the ship over one asteroid then are forced to fire on another one immediately in their path, the bits of debris easily deflected by the shields, and Raven lets out a loud whoop of enthusiasm. Charles laughs, somehow forgetting the weight of the mission for a few blessed moments, a little high off the excitement in the air and the energy of the minds buzzing around him.

“Quiet down back there,” Erik barks back at them, but there’s no real bite to the words, and Charles smiles wider.

“Charles, put your hands in the air!” Raven instructs, grabbing one of his hands from the side of his chair and forcibly dragging it free.

They swerve around another asteroid and Charles finally lets go, heart in his throat, laughing again, reveling almost savagely in the weightless he feels at the moment. In just a few short hours he’ll have to pull himself away from all this—pull himself away from Erik—but right now, he’s damned if he won’t enjoy what might be some of his last happy moments. He grabs on tight to Raven’s hand and whoops along with her as his stomach flops when they dive down and back up, swerving right and then left and then over.

There’s a loud crashing from the hallway and for one awful second, Charles thinks that maybe something’s broken, but then he hears Logan’s voice, raging and swearing before the man himself appears. An unlit cigar is dangling from between his teeth which are set in a firm snarl, and his Priest robes are all askew as if he just threw them on without even looking. He splays his arms out to either side of the doorway, bracing himself against the jambs, breathing heavily, and Charles realizes with a mixture of shame and amusement, that they forgot to tell him about the upcoming turbulence.

“Are you trying to fuckin’ kill me?” he growls around the cigar.

“Sorry, Priest,” Moira calls. “Asteroid belt. Sit down and strap in.”

Still grumbling, Logan inches his way over to one of the seats on the other side of the doorway and does as he’s told, looking pointedly down at the ground instead of out the front window at the infinite blackness of space. Charles swallows. The arrival of Logan is another reminder of what he must do very soon, but the thought churns his stomach. He puts his hands back down and grips his seat once more, setting up against the backrest as Moira and Erik hurtle the last handful of asteroids.

They settle back into their normal flight pattern and Logan lets out a quiet sigh. Moira and Erik go back to pressing a series of buttons on their screen and talking in pilot jargon that Charles has given up trying to understand. Raven turns to Charles, beaming at him and grabbing his arm enthusiastically.

“Wasn’t that great?”

Charles smiles quickly. “Yes,” he says sincerely.

Raven sits back in her seat, running a hand through her hair. “And here I was thinking Erik was just exaggerating his flying prowess.”

“You shouldn’t have doubted me,” Erik calls dryly from his chair.

Moira stands, barely suppressing a yawn and gives them all a quick wave. “I’m going to see if I can get some more shut-eye,” she says. “Hopefully I won’t see you all too soon.”

Logan stomps off the bridge shortly after, muttering under his breath in a language Charles doesn’t recognize but nevertheless sounds highly unflattering. Raven watches him go, amused, before she too stands up and stretches.

“I think I’m going to hit the hay one last time too,” she says, looking significantly between Charles and the back of Erik’s head, “so I’ll see you guys in awhile.”

At first Charles isn’t sure why hay needs hitting, but then he realizes she somehow must mean sleep. “See you, Raven.”

She gives him a rather large wink and a thumbs up, and then saunters off the same way Logan and Moira have gone. Charles is alone again with Erik on the bridge, his star-bright mind pulsing gently on the edges of Charles’ awareness as he runs a few systems checks.

Charles should go.

“I won’t be offended if you go back to bed, too,” Erik says after a moment, glancing back at him over his shoulder, nothing but honest. “You’re probably going to need all the rest you can get, frankly.” He flashes a grin. “Saving the world probably takes a lot of energy.”

Charles can’t help the smile that spreads across his face, unbearably fond. Inwardly he curses himself several different dialects for a fool. Erik’s handing him an excuse to leave, and start putting distance between them now. “I’d rather stay,” his traitorous mouth says instead, nothing but honest.

He’ll let himself have just this, he tells himself firmly as he gets up and moves to sit in Moira’s empty copilot seat, just a few more hours of soaking in Erik’s presence. When Erik’s hand reaches out across the small distance Charles takes it with both of his own, sliding their fingers together and holding Erik’s hand in his lap, hanging onto Erik while he still can.

Neither of them says anything, and as they sit in companionable silence Charles watches the stars slide by and wonders if he’s still able to feel this way, what is it that truly separates him from being human.

 

*

 

Fhloston Paradise comes into view roughly two and a half hours later, filling up the viewscreen and looking—unimpressively, in Erik’s opinion—like a slightly more waterlogged Earth. Long strands of puffy white clouds curl wispily around the curvature of the planet, while further down below a deep, blue ocean extends on as far as the eye can see. Supposedly there are islands scattered along the equatorial line, and visiting the planet is supposed to be like one large beach.

Peachy, Erik thinks, if you’re a fan of getting sand up your ass while your skin fries slowly from the radiation of Fhloston’s F-sequence star.

Everyone is gathered together on the bridge again, back from their naps and ready to face whatever waits ahead. Charles has long since let go of Erik’s hand, having slid to his feet with a smile to give Moira her chair back when she’d arrived, but even though he now sits strapped back into a passenger chair between Logan and Raven, Erik can still feel the warmth of his hands wrapped around his own.

There’s something brittle between them, like a thin piece of glass already beginning to crack. Charles has been nothing but genuine smiles and warm bursts of telepathic affection, but even so Erik still can’t shake the feeling he’s being held at arm’s length, that something has changed somewhere between their tryst last night and being woken by Moira for Erik’s next shift. He’d had plenty of opportunity to ask when it’d just been him and Charles again on the bridge, but Erik hadn’t wanted to push. Now, with everyone back, it’s too late.

Together he and Moira guide the ship down into Fhloston’s atmosphere, easing back on their velocity to avoid burning to a crisp on reentry. Raven gasps in delight as they coast above a sea of clouds for a few seconds, the sunlight bouncing all around them in dazzling, refracting waves, and then Erik and Moira tilt the ship’s nose down just enough to gradually sink down through them.

“Which island will the stones be located on?” Charles asks as the tiny specks of land begin to come into view far below, tiny oases in the middle of a vast ocean desert.

“Actually, we’re looking for a cruise ship,” Moira answers him as Erik flips open a transmission channel, “and the fastest way to find it will be—ah, there it is.”

Music begins to play as Erik fine tunes the channel, steel drums and horns blaring out of the bridge’s speakers in a nauseatingly tropical arrangement heralding the cruise ship’s location. “Got a lock on them,” Erik reports, running a quick program to trace the music back to its source, and then snaps the channel closed, cutting the music off. He swears he hears Logan give a sigh of relief.

“They’ll be coming up on our port side shortly,” Moira announces, “we’re on an easy interception course, so we should see them soon.”

The cruise ship, when it comes into view, is exactly what Erik expected—massive and barely aerodynamic. She looks like she was designed to replicate one of Earth’s old-fashioned cruise ships, the kind that used to sail around on the actual ocean near the Caribbean Islands or in the Mediterranean Sea, with a huge whale tale painted a garish red and an open-faced deck where Erik can count no less than three separate pools. Three huge towers stick up out of the middle of the deck, and six engines, three on either side, glow blue down at the bottom of the stern, pushing the hulking mess through the air.

“Whoa,” Raven says, and Erik thinks if she wasn’t strapped in she’d have her nose pressed up against the viewscreen. “Pretty impressive.”

“If you’re only judging by size,” Erik mutters, and Moira shoots him a grin in agreement.

They pull back on the throttle simultaneously, easing into the rest of the traffic, riding the coattails of a gaudy red and black ship that looks as if it has a burrito of all things painted on the side of it into the dock. Out in the midst of all the traffic, standing just inside the lip of the dock, a uniformed woman directs traffic with two bright yellow and orange sticks. She shepherds the ship in front of them to the left and then signals to Erik and Moira to take a right. They do, trundling slowly down the aisle until another uniformed attendant—this one looking like something between an octopus and a giant stick insect—gestures for them to take a spot at the top of a three-tiered parking rack.

Slowly, they glide up to their spot and lower the Magneto gently down until a gentle bump signals her landing gear has taken her weight. Simultaneously, they flick off the engines and begin running their final checks. Apart from the low fuel, everything seems okay. The engines are a little hot, but that’s normal for such a long run, and they’ll cool off quickly now that they’ve landed.

“All right,” Moira says, unbuckling her seatbelt. “We’re ready to move. Everyone got everything they need?”

“Yes,” Charles replies as both Raven and Logan grunt their affirmatives.

Erik flicks off his screen and Moira flicks off hers and together they stand. To his surprise, Erik’s heart is racing just the slightest bit in anticipation. They’ve gotten this far—it’s highly unlikely they’ll be stopped and questioned about their presence anywhere on the ship, and even if they are, they have Charles to smooth things over, but there’s still the big “What if?” looming over them all. What if they can’t find the stones? What if someone else got to them first? What if something else goes horribly wrong.

Erik forces these thoughts to the back of his mind, hoping Charles hasn’t somehow picked up on them and made himself even more anxious, but when Erik glances sideways at him as they file out of the cockpit he doesn’t look any more perturbed than normal. As if he can feel Erik’s stare, Charles turns, giving him a small half-smile that Erik quickly returns. He wants to reach out and give Charles’ shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but it’s cramped with all of them packed in the hallway and he doesn’t really want to suffer another look from Moira just yet.

Once they get out into the hold, Moira goes over to the keypad off along the side of the wall and taps in the code that opens the hatch. With a quiet hiss and slide, the bottom of the hold opens and the folding stairs descend from their hiding place inside the belly of the ship, reaching down to the floor of the dock outside. Moira goes down first, followed by Logan, then Raven, then Charles, with Erik bringing up the rear. By the time Erik makes it out into the open air, an attendant is already coming up to Moira, a holopad in one of its six hands.

“Identification and tickets please,” it says, its voice oddly light and lyrical for its large, rotund body.

“Ah, yes,” Moira says, pretending to dig in her back pocket. “Charles?”

Charles steps forward, pressing two of his fingers to the side of his temple and looking straight in the alien’s eye. “Here they are,” he says, his voice sounding slightly strained and far away.

Erik watches in mute amazement as the alien sways slightly, blinking its one big eye once slowly, before it nods, back to business, typing something into its holopad.

“Thank you, sir,” it says brusquely.

It steps off to the side, letting them pass, and Moira spares no time in leading them all down the long pathway that leads into the resort. Curious, Erik sneaks a glance at the alien’s face as he walks by, but it seems completely unharmed by whatever Charles had done to it, giving him a slight nod when it notices Erik is watching before moving on down the line. Shrugging, Erik jogs to catch up with the rest of the train, falling into step alongside Charles, who is staring ahead, his jaw set and eyes determinedly forward.

“That was brilliant, Charles,” he murmurs, grinning.

Charles gives him a sideways look out of the corner of his eye. “Thank you,” he says. “But we’re hardly out of the woods yet. The Diva performs in a little over an hour. That gives us an hour to find her, get the stones, and get out.”

“Maybe we should just go to the concert,” Raven suggests hopefully.

Charles hesitates, his gaze sliding over to Logan, who’s a few steps ahead of him, but he seems not to notice whatever Charles is trying to telepathically say, merely grunting. Erik frowns.

“Doubt we’ll be able to get backstage this close to showtime without Chuck here having to freeze the whole place,” Logan says. “The concert might be our best bet.”

“Yes!” Raven crows, pumping a fist into the air. “I can’t believe we’re going to see Irene Adler perform live!”

“Very well,” Charles says, smiling a little at Raven’s enthusiasm, but Erik can tell he’s not entirely happy with this decision. Erik’s frown deepens.

“We still have an hour to kill,” Moira points out as they’re funneled into the main lobby of the resort with the rest of the crowd, “so what should we do in the meantime?”

“Whoa,” Raven says, barely listening and almost coming to a complete stop in the middle of the doorway, “check it out.”

Erik grabs her by the shoulder to steer her off to the side to avoid causing a traffic jam, but he’s looking around in amazement too. The main lobby of the cruise’s resort looks like it was lifted straight out of an old history book on aristocratic wealth. The high, domed ceiling is gilded in gold, with murals painted in between each support beam that look like they’re from the Renaissance. Crystal chandeliers hang down, three across and ten deep, heading back towards a long, marble top counter Erik assumes serves as the front desk, and in the very center of the room is a fountain deep enough to swim in, the quiet sound of bubbling water running beneath the echoing chatter of the hotel’s patrons. The walls are lined with tall columns, thicker than Erik’s arms are wide, and the floor is polished to a sheen so bright Erik can see himself perfectly reflected when he looks down.

“This is ridiculous,” he says, and beside him Moira and Logan both shake their heads nearly in unison in agreement.

“This is amazing,” Raven says, stroking her hand across the polished wood backrest of the nearest cushy chair. “Completely over the top, but pretty wild.”

Erik shoots a glance over at Charles, trying to catch his eye to see what he thinks, but Charles has his head tilted all the way back, trying to study the paintings on the ceiling. Erik wonders how this show of human opulence measures up to that of the Elements—is Charles used to this kind of forced but pointed display of wealth, or is this gaudy even by Elemental standards? Yesterday Erik might have been able to send the question to him telepathically, but right now he can sense Charles’ mind is closed, keeping to himself, thoughts and feelings tightly reeled in.

“Well, we can wander around the public decks for awhile,” Moira begins, ever practical, “or should we just go get in line for the concert? Do we need tickets?”

“Charles can just mind-whammy the attendant at the door if we do,” Raven says dismissively, “but yeah, you’re right. We should go get in line. I bet people have been sitting in line for hours already, and we definitely want to get in.”

“Where do we go?” Charles asks, alerted by the sound of his name and tuning back into the conversation.

“Well, if they built this place like a normal hotel, they’ll have a grand ballroom or opera theater,” Raven says, “and I bet that’s where all the performances are taking place. All we have to do is ask someone where it is.”

“Why don’t we just follow the crowd?” Moira suggests, nodding towards one of the hallways stemming from the lobby off to the right. “I bet they have signs along the way.”

Their little ragtag group sets off, trying to stick together as they weave their way around various wandering people, all who seem to be intent on being in the way. This is exactly why Erik hates cruise ships, and any kind of vacations that involve being tossed into the masses of the general public, he thinks sourly as he’s forced to sidestep around a family trying to take a photo in the middle of everything, he can’t stand crowds. The shuffle of people has also given Charles the opportunity to slip further away from Erik, so by the time they’ve re-converged back together in the hallway, he and Charles are on opposite sides of their group as they keep pressing forward, though thankfully with the flow of the crowd now.

This turns out to be highly unfortunate, because as they’re walking one of the side doors for hotel staff designed to blend in with the molding of the walls bursts open, and an hand reaches out and snatches Charles by the arm and yanks him inside before the door slams shut again.

Luckily Erik was staring at Charles broodingly, or otherwise he would’ve missed the entire thing. Logan, Raven, and Moira still haven’t even noticed but Erik lets out a small shout, diving sideways and grabbing onto the hidden hinges of the door with his powers, yanking it open and barreling inside, intent on rescuing Charles from the snatcher.

“CONGRATULATIONS!” a voice shouts as Erik comes to a stumbling halt, nearly running into Charles where he hovers uncertainly just inside the doorway. They appear to be in some kind of backstage area, the lights dim and various crates and containers stacked along the walls haphazardly. Behind him Logan, Moira, and Raven come crashing in behind him and then the door slams shut. “YOU AND YOUR PARTY HAVE BEEN RANDOMLY SELECTED AS HONORARY TASTE-TESTERS! WOOOOOOO!”

“What is happening?” Charles asks, bewildered, and then with the sound of an actual cannon, confetti shoots off from somewhere above them and rains down all around them.

“What the fuck,” Raven echoes him.

A man in a red and black jumpsuit swings down from the darkness above, letting go of his rope at the last possible second and doing a perfect backflip in midair, sticking his landing with his arms held open wide as they all look on in various states of shocked alarm. The man strikes a dramatic pose, thrusting his hips out and pointing at Charles. Erik tenses, ready to jump between them.

“What’s your name, fuzzy little man-peach?”

“Charles?” Charles answers uncertainly.

“Charles!” The man leaps forward, faster than Erik can blink, and grabs Charles’ hand, shaking it up and down wildly. “Welcome, welcome! I’m Wade Wilson and I’ll be responsible for all your fine dining experiences here on Fhloston Paradise!” He clears his throat, and makes a sound like a neighing horse. “Wade’s Wacky Wild Wonderous Wholesale Weatherproof Worshipped Worthwhile Whimsical—” he leans in and says in a deep voice, “— _Delightful_ —” and then continues in his regular voice, “—Wholeheartedly Wholesome Food Company is pleased to be serving you today!”

“Jesus,” says Moira.

“Seemed like a pretty reasonable guy,” Wade agrees, nodding his head. “But Charles—can I call you Chuck? Ol’ Chucky Chuck, Chuckie Cheese, Chuck the Duck, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood—”

“Enough!” Erik snaps, feeling slightly dizzy. “What the hell do you want?”

“Just Charles is fine,” Charles says cautiously, finally been given room to speak up.

“Charles!” Wade says happily, as if he was never interrupted. “Today isn’t about me, my finely feathered friend. Today is all about you! We'll find out everything there is to know about the C-man: his dreams, his desires, his most intimates of intimates, and from what I'm looking at, _intimate_ is the stud muffin's middle name.” He leans in close to Charles’ face and waggles his eyebrows. “So tell me my man, are you nervous in the service?”

“Um.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Raven says suspiciously while Charles looks back at them all over his shoulder in a clear plea for help, “you’re that crazy chimichanga guy from TV, aren’t you? With those commercials that have the—”

“—GIANT SPERM WHALE!” Wade lets go of Charles’ hand and jogs in place, reaching up to wipe a tear from his eye. “Man I _love_ that guy. He’s been places, man. He’s seen some shit. He _knows_.”

“...Anyway,” Raven says, “your food is supposed to be awesome—if terrifying in appearance,” she mutters as an aside to Erik, Logan, and Moira.

Wade beams at her. “Thank you, Alpha Prime!”

“Well we’re not here to eat,” Erik says loudly, trying to bring back some kind of order to this random tornado of chaos. “We’re here to see the concert.”

“Not here to eat?” Wade demands. “Not here to _eat_?”

“Calm your damn self,” Logan says, eyebrows raised. “You’re gonna give yourself a hernia, bub.”

“Bulging organs are hardly a concern if this tall, mysterious man isn’t even here to use his pearly white chompers to rip into my main-course dishes!” Wade says, aghast. He droops sadly. “All those teeth. Such a waste, such a waste.” He lifts his head and squints at Erik. “Are you at all related to Guy Ramsay Ferry?”

“Who,” Erik says blankly.

Somewhere beyond Wade, a door opens and bright light streams out, along with the clatter of noise signifying a busy kitchen. “Hey boss,” someone calls, “we’ve got a whole tray of spotted dick here, where do you want us to put it?”

Wade crashes down to the ground, clutching his sides with uncontrollable laughter. “He—he said—he said—” he gasps out, breaking off between each breath with more laughter, “—he said _spotted_.”

“That’s one cracked walnut,” Logan remarks while Wade struggles to control himself, rolling back up to his feet and bouncing over to confer with his employee.

“Maybe we should go while we still can,” Moira suggests, jerking her head towards the door they came through.

“Perhaps that would be best,” Charles says hesitantly, but then it’s too late, and Wade has wheeled himself around and bounded back over to them.

“Well, amigos,” he says, “if you’re not going to eat, then I can at least contribute to your experience somehow! Come with me, and I’ll get you front row seats to the Diva’s concert.”

Raven practically grows wings. “Front row seats?!” she says, seizing Wade by the front of his jumpsuit and dragging him close. “You’d better not be kidding.”

“I never joke,” Wade assures her. He sticks up both hands, making two little guns with his fingers. “Quiver, ladies, quiver.”

Erik raises an eyebrow dubiously. “And we’re supposed to believe you?”

“I am the paragon of truth and justice,” Wade swears, “and if I’m not, then may I be kicked out of my office as president of Wade’s Wacky Wild Wonderous Wholesale Weatherproof Worshipped Worthwhile Whimsical—” he leans in again and says in a deep voice, “— _Delightful_ —” before continuing in his regular voice, “—Wholeheartedly Wholesome Food Company. You green?”

“Super green,” Moira says solemnly, looking like she’s trying very hard not to laugh at Erik’s expression.

Wade makes a whooping noise, punching the air with a fist as Raven quickly releases him. He beams at them all again before turning swiftly around and fairly sprinting to another half-concealed door across the way, waving his arm like a pinwheel and calling, “Come on, come on! This way, my Spanish galleons!”

Erik feels a bit like he’s entered some kind of surrealist painting and stays frozen for a moment, not sure what to do, but Charles has promptly followed Wade, so Erik knows he must, too. They all rush to the door, only to pull up short a second later when Wade holds out a hand to stop them. Erik goes crashing into Charles’ back and has to quickly grab onto him and the surrounding metal of the room to keep them both upright. Once his hands are securely braced on Charles’ shoulders, Erik finds he doesn’t quite want to remove them, especially when he looks back up and finds Wade grinning maniacally at them all. He grips Charles a little tighter, suddenly getting the sinking feeling that anything could be behind that door.

“Alright, you guys,” Wade says, rubbing his hands together. “Not everybody gets to see this, so I hope you’re pumped.”

“Yes, yes,” Charles says at once. “Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson.”

Wade, who was stooping to grab the door handle suddenly stand back up, his eyes looking almost like they’ve filled with tears. He reaches through the little crowd at the door—which parts easily for him—and grabs Charles’ hand.

“Please,” he says, his voice filled with emotion. “Call me Deadpool.”

“Deadpool?” Erik asks, completely out of his depth now, but Wade doesn’t notice because he’s already whipped around and thrown the door wide.

Raven eagerly steps through, followed more cautiously by Moira and Logan and Charles, until Erik, still holding fast to Charles’ shoulder, is pulled over the threshold as well. But instead of inside a grand opera theatre, Erik finds they’ve stepped through into a small apartment with a large four-poster bed off to one side and a small living room area off on the other. He opens his mouth, discombobulated, feeling like he should be spinning around and demanding that Wade take them to the theatre, but frozen in something like shock.

“Where are we?” Logan demands.

“In my suite, of course,” Wade says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You guys aren’t dressed for the concert at all. Gramps over here is still in his robe.” He gestures with his thumb to Logan, who scowls. “Come on! Get dressed. We don’t have a lot of time. I’m gonna go grab a quick bite before we have to go.” He winks at them. “Don’t have too much fun.”

And in no time at all he’s disappeared out the door again. Erik breathes a sigh of relief, and he’s not the only one. The whole group—with maybe the exception of Charles—looks to be suddenly sagging now that the human equivalent of a radioactive time bomb isn’t in the room. Raven shakes herself first, blinking quickly before making a face that seems to imply she’s filing that experience away for later analysis.

“Well,” she says. “You heard the man. The sooner we dress, the sooner we can go to the concert.”

“Right,” Moira says. She leads the way cautiously over to a tall wardrobe that’s placed against the far wall, and the rest of them follow.

The wardrobe is a dark, rich teak wood that’s varnished and shined so well Erik can see his face reflected back in it. The only imperfection in the otherwise baroque style is the bright holographic screen no bigger than an envelope projected on one of the doors. It displays a menu of clothing options almost like a department store; there’s men’s, women’s, unisex, multiple size categories, and a “my wardrobe” option that Erik supposes must have all of Wade’s favorites catalogued away. Raven lets out a low whistle.

“Wow,” she says quietly. “Nothing but the best for the space elite, huh? This technology isn’t even available on the free market yet.”

“No time to marvel over it,” Logan says dismissively, stepping forward and tapping open the menswear option. “Just get what we need and change.”

He choses a suit almost at random, and selects his clothing size. The door of the wardrobe pops quietly open just a crack, and when Logan pulls it open the rest of the way, they see the exact suit he had selected suspended inside on a single hanger. Logan grunts, presumably in approval, and takes the suit off the rack, heading to the changing screen in the corner without another word while Raven steps up eagerly to his vacated spot.

They cycle quickly through picking clothing: Raven choosing a long white gown and Moira an elegant black jumpsuit, and then it’s Erik’s turn. He spends about as much time choosing as Logan had, picking the first plain tuxedo he sees, and praying it doesn’t have a cummerbund. He takes it out of the wardrobe, but instead of going over to the changing screen he pauses, glancing at Charles who is now staring at the menu, chewing his lip.

“Everything alright?” Erik asks quietly so the rest of the group, either changing or waiting by the door, can’t hear him.

Charles frowns slightly, clenching and unclenching his hand where it hovers unsurely above the hologram. “I’m just… not sure what to pick,” he mutters. “I don’t want to stick out from the crowd. There’s tunics and things here, which is what I’m used to, but—” He cuts himself off, scrolling quickly through the menswear options, his frown deepening the further in he goes. “I don’t even know what _clothes_ to put on, how am I supposed to—”

He falls silent again, but Erik suspects he knows the end to that sentence. He reaches out and takes Charles’ hand, pulling it away from the screen.

“Hey,” he says, tilting his head so Charles is forced to look away from the screen to meet his gaze. “The clothing doesn’t matter. Fitting in doesn’t matter.” He presses a quick kiss to the inside of Charles’ palm. “Be yourself. That’s enough.”

Charles sighs, closing his eyes, and for a moment he looks impossibly small compared to the enormity of the task ahead. Erik’s heart jumps somewhere in the region of his throat, and for the first time, a quiet, gnawing doubt begins to seep like a poison into the back of his mind. Last night, Charles had mentioned that he didn’t know if he’d be enough to save the universe. At the time, Erik had been too lovestruck to even entertain the thought, dismissing it as Charles just being paranoid or modest. Now, though, he thinks he might see what Charles meant. In just a few short hours, Charles has become almost everything to Erik—Erik doesn’t want to spend another day away from his side—but just because Erik is in love with Charles doesn’t mean the universe owes them anything for it. The Dark Planet is the most evil, all-consuming force in the entire cosmos. And as much as Erik fiercely loves Charles, he has to admit to himself that neither one of them is immortal.

He swallows hard. Then Charles’ eyes flicker open again, and he gives Erik a wan smile that doesn’t quite reach them. He squeezes Erik’s fingers, looking like he very much wants to say something, but can’t quite find the words. Instead, Erik feels a soft brush along the surface of his mind like a ray of sunlight poking out from the clouds on an overcast day, and he clings onto it like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline. _No_ , he decides in that moment. Stupid, suicidal, foolhardy as it might be, Erik refuses to believe in a future without Charles. Whatever obstacles await them in these next few hours, Erik will gladly meet them head-on if it means being there by Charles’ side, even if he has to stare down the Dark Planet itself. There’s no way the horror of the Dark Planet could compare to the crippling emptiness of a life without Charles.

“Okay,” he says matter-of-factly, seeing with not a small amount of triumph that he’s managed to shake Charles from a bit of his moroseness. “Let’s get you a suit and get you to the concert. Unless you _want_ a tunic?”

Charles shakes his head.

“I thought not,” he says. He glances sideways at Charles, giving him a small smile, which Charles thankfully returns with less trepidation than before. Remembering how much Charles had enjoyed the color of the flight suit, Erik selects a simple, dark blue suit with a thin magenta tie, expanding the picture for Charles to see. “How about this one?”

Charles’ eyebrows raise, surprised, but apparently not unpleasantly so. He clicks on the image, and the wardrobe whirs quietly, the door popping open a second later. Smiling softly, Charles reaches inside and pulls out the suit, feeling the fabric of one of the sleeves with an almost rapturous look on his face. He glances over the whole thing, his eye catching on the tie, and he turns, giving Erik an unimpressed if amused look.

“Magenta, though?” he asks.

Erik pauses, frowning. He opens his mouth to ask what’s so wrong with magenta when they’re interrupted by a shout from Logan by the door.

“You two ready or what?”

“Yes, coming!” Charles replies. He reaches out and wraps his fingers around Erik’s wrist, giving it a brief squeeze before he goes off to change, Erik following behind.

They’re just fastening up their pants when Wade re-enters from the kitchen.

“You crazy kids ready to go?” he asks, his voice slightly muffled, and when Erik peeks up over the privacy screen he sees his mouth is full of half-chewed chimichanga. He quickly looks back down and goes back to doing up his belt.

“Almost,” Charles calls. He quickly slips on his shoes, doing them up with the same intricate knot Erik has seen him make before. He steps out from behind the screen, shrugging on his jacket, and Erik, who had chosen shoes without laces, quickly hurries to follow.

By the time he makes it out from behind the screen, Wade is shoving the last of the chimichanga into his mouth with a muffled noise of bliss. He licks each of his fingers quickly before placing his hands on his hips, surveying them all with a—thankfully close-mouthed—smile. He nods approvingly at each of them, swallowing loudly before grinning again with all his teeth.

“You guys look great!” he says. “More delicious than a truckload full of pancake-encrusted burritos with extra maple sriracha. Which is saying a lot.”

“Thanks,” Raven says warily.

“Can you take us to the concert now, please?” Charles asks.

“Is Bea Arthur the greatest artist known to humankind?” Wade replies with an inflection that seems to mean _of course_. “The concert hall is right this way.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

Wade leads them back out the door they came into his bedroom from, but instead of taking them back to the door where he kidnapped Charles, he leads them in the opposite direction, down a series of hallways where they pass a handful uniformed staff members, but otherwise proceed unheeded. Wade’s taken to singing some song about spaceships and “afternoon delight” that Erik doesn’t recognize, but the rest of them are silent as they walk, lost in their own thoughts.

Absentmindedly, Erik stretches out his powers into the surrounding metal, tracing the beams and electrical wire that line the hallway before extending farther, into the adjoining rooms and the floors below. Somewhere close by Erik feels a large conglomeration of metal jewelry and wiring systems, and realizes with a jolt of anticipation that sets his pulse racing that this must be the concert hall. He glances over and notices that Charles has turned towards the feeling too; his telepathy probably picking up on the gathering of people waiting for the show.

Sure enough, Wade steers them through a door to the right and down another short hallway before he pushes open one last door and gestures them outside into the largest, most resplendent theatre Erik has ever seen. Ahead of him he hears Raven and even Moira gasp as they look up at the massive chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling, so large and shiny it’s almost like a constellation in and of itself. The walls, including the one behind them that hides the door they entered through, are papered with a dark red pattern with faint flowered markings, and the seats that stretch out in countless row upon row in front of them have the same dark red upholstery. To their left is the focal point of the room: a huge stage covered with even larger red curtains, skirted with golden tassels, and Erik’s heart jumps again to realize how close they really are to achieving their goal.

Without even realizing what he’s doing, Erik reaches beside him and takes Charles’ hand, lacing their fingers together, and Charles is either too stunned himself or too nervous to do anything but hold on back. The grandeur of the theatre doesn’t seem to faze Wade at all, however, and he hardly pauses to make sure they’ve all followed before leading them down the aisle towards the front of the stage, gesturing to groups as he passes.

“Over there are the Duax'yhqian ministers,” he leans over, dropping his voice to a stage whisper and adding conspiratorially, “more sinisters than ministers.” He straightens up again and points across the way to an alien that looks like a cross between a human and a lizard with large, floppy ears and stalk eyes. “Jarjar Binks, star of stage and screen, and,” he points to two small, squat aliens with large, elaborately braided hairdos, “the Empresses of the Clajedh. Very lovely conversationalists and two of my best customers.”

They see Wade pointing and begin waving enthusiastically. Wade drops into a bow so low his nose almost scrapes the ground, and the Empresses look at each other, grinning with green teeth sharp as spikes. Popping up again, Wade gives the Empresses a quick salute before continuing on the rest of the way down the aisle. Raven lets in a sharp, anticipatory breath as they turn into the front row and begin scooting towards the center. Even Erik has to admit he’s impressed: as unscrewed as Wade seems, he wasn’t lying to them about the VIP seating.

He begins shuffling into the row behind Moira but pauses when the hand linked with Charles’ doesn’t come with him. He turns, frowning, and catches Charles’ gaze. Charles is still standing in the aisle, shifting unsurely as he watches their small train inch along to their seats, his brow slightly furrowed in thought, hand limp in Erik’s.

That he’s thinking about not joining them is painfully evident, although why, Erik can’t be sure. Perhaps he thinks it’s better to try and find the Diva instead of sitting through the concert, but personally Erik thinks it’s safer to stay under the radar of the resort staff and use their connection with Wade to their advantage. After all, if he has front-row seats to the concert and is in charge of catering for the whole hotel, the odds are pretty good that they’ll be able to slip in with other high-profile guests and possibly meet the Diva after the show. But Charles is under much more stress than Erik is right now, so he decides gentle is the way to go.

“Hey,” he says quietly, tugging slightly on Charles’ hand to urge him on. “You coming?”

Charles only hesitates a moment longer before nodding slowly and sliding in behind Erik, shuffling along to their seats, which are almost exactly in the middle of the front row. They drop hands once they sit down, but Charles is sitting so close Erik can almost feel the heat radiating out from him through his shoulder. On his other side, Moira makes a vague noise of approval, her face turned up toward the proscenium that’s decorated with a train of gold-leafed roses, while Raven seems rooted to her chair, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth, staring at the curtain with unwavering concentration.

“I never thought I’d see something like this,” Erik mutters. “It’s so… ornate.”

Charles hums in acknowledgement, gazing up at the ceiling again. “The Oyemai didn’t have theatres like this,” he says after a moment. “Theirs were out in the open air, covered by a tent if the weather got bad.”

“Did they have concerts?” Erik asks.

“Yes,” Charles answers. “But the music always told a story too, and most of the time they were accompanied by a group of dancers.” A soft smile flickers across his face at the memory. “Their plays had music, too. One or two narrators, a handful of actors, and the orchestra. Everything is about music to them.”

“That sounds very…” Erik trails off, not quite able to find the proper word, and Charles’ smile widens as he looks over at Erik out of the corner of his eye.

“In all honesty, I’m not sure it’s your idea of a good time,” he says. “But I think maybe you’d grow to appreciate it one day.”

Erik grins back, opening his mouth to suggest that he and Charles go to the Oyemai planet so Charles could teach him to appreciate it more, but just as he does, the chandelier dims, and the noise of the crowd around them dies down into a murmur as the last stragglers hurry to their seats. Wade, who had been turned around in his seat, talking to the people behind them about something to do with the catering, spins forward again with an exclamation of excitement, tucking his hands under his thighs and seeming to jog in place in his seat.

“Oh boy oh man,” he whispers. “This is gonna be so great. I’m so glad you guys are here, there’s no other posse I’d rather—”

“If you don’t shut your mouth I’m going to shut it for you,” Raven hisses, grabbing onto his arm with both her hands.

But then Erik’s attention—and the attention of everyone else in the theatre—is stolen as the lights dim completely, a single spot coming up on the curtain which rises slowly, inch by inch in the now deathly silent concert hall. Behind the curtain, the stage is bare, and for a second, Erik thinks it’s completely deserted, but then he sees her; a figure in a long blue dress standing silhouetted in the darkness against a stark backdrop that makes more than one person gasp as they see it. The ship must have raised into the planet’s orbit sometime while they were dressing because the planet Fhloston looms now behind the Diva through a large window, huge and blue and awesome in the oldest sense of the word. Erik finds his jaw has dropped open and he quickly closes it, swallowing thickly.

The Diva steps forward into the light, the train of a cape fastened around her shoulders dragging out elegantly behind her, and the tension in the room is palpable. She’s wearing a large, circular headpiece almost like a halo that’s the same color blue as her dress, save for the golden mesh fabric that covers her face, giving a vagueness to her features that only heightens the audience’s anticipation. Her hands come out to her sides, and somewhere a flute starts up, lilting a high, soft melody, followed by the quietest plucking of strings. Then the Diva opens her mouth and begins to sing.

It’s a language Erik has never heard before in his life, ancient sounding and melodic, but somehow, though he doesn’t know the words, though her face is still covered by that golden fabric, he knows exactly what the singer is conveying. Her voice is achingly expressive, dropping from high notes to low without any sense of strain, and her hands follow the notes on the staff like instruments in their own right. If she’d seemed small on the stage before, she doesn’t now. Fhloston barely registers on Erik’s radar other than “that big blue thing in the background”; the whole universe has narrowed down to this one woman, this one performance.

The song turns mournful suddenly, the strings picking up a more staccato rhythm, and the Diva’s voice lowers, urgent and almost afraid. She leans forward towards the audience as if searching for someone, and beside him, Erik feels Charles shift nervously. Then the Diva throws her gaze up, singing a high note to the back of the concert hall, and as the intensity of the note falls, so does the Diva’s gaze until it’s resting right on their little group in the front row. The strings and brass pick up their previous sweet melody, but the Diva’s eyes never leave them. In fact, they slide down the line, from Wade, to Raven, to Moira, to Erik, until they land finally on Charles and stop.

Erik hears the little intake of breath Charles takes as the Diva stares him down, reaching toward him as she sings a high refrain. The notes are lovely and lilting, but her eyes are wide; the urgency behind them is unmistakeable. Charles flinches almost imperceptibly, mouth dropping open and another breath hissing in harshly through his teeth. Even the instruments have fallen away, and in the otherwise silent theatre, the Diva must hear the noise.

She straightens up, training her eyes to the back of the auditorium, and just as she does, Charles stands, back ramrod straight, his hands curled into fists at his side. Erik turns to him, stunned, reaching for his hand and feeling almost physically burned when Charles pulls it away and begins making his way back down the aisle, ignoring the annoyed looks of the other audience members.

 _Where are you going?_ he projects sloppily in the direction of Charles’ retreating back. He’s already halfway out of his own seat when he feels an invisible force tug him down, fixing him to his seat. It only takes him another second to realize belatedly it’s his own muscles that are holding him down against his will, and a fierce surge of anger and dread rises up in him. _Charles!_

 _Stay down, Erik._ Charles’ voice is almost unrecognizable in Erik’s head. It’s steely and echoes like the aftershocks of a painful migraine, rattling around in Erik’s brain, a command he’s unable to shake.

Erik’s left with just enough control to turn his head and watch as Charles finally makes it out of the row and begins sprinting up the aisle, attracting a handful of stern looks. Theatre etiquette be damned, Erik opens his mouth to shout for him to stop, but then Charles seizes control of Erik’s jaw as well and clamps it shut so hard Erik almost bites his tongue. Somewhere in the orchestra pit a new deep bass line starts up punctuated with sharp, biting notes from the strings and Erik sits, breathing hard and riveted helplessly to his chair as in front of him, the Diva visibly steels herself before lifting her hands to either side of her head, tilting it back to the ceiling, and singing an unearthly high note to the heavens.

 

*

 

Charles can hear the blood pounding in his ears as he races up the aisle and towards the closest exit. He can feel Erik’s mind on his periphery, thrashing and screaming for freedom, but Charles refuses to give it to him. After the vision the Diva showed him, he’s definitely not letting Erik out of his grasp until he’s a safe distance away and knows Erik will be unable to follow him into danger. He rounds the corner of the aisle and bolts down the vomitorium and out the door of the concert hall, into the balcony overlooking the fountain in the main entryway. The faint sounds of a more upbeat strain of music follow him for a moment before the door snaps shut again and the only noise is the splashing of the fountain in the middle of the lobby and the clack of his shoes on the marble floor.

The Diva had given him a map of the hotel leading to her suite, and he sprints down the stairs to follow it, nearly tripping and falling down the first flight. He manages to catch himself on the banister just in time and barely spares a second to recover before taking the rest of the stairs two at a time. He has just a few minutes to reach the stones, but if the Diva’s predictions are in any way off—and she had assured him sadly in his mind that she wasn’t always right—it may already be too late. The D’Khantuun may already be in the room, they may already be searching for the stones, or worse, already have them in their grasp. Charles has come this far already. The Dark Planet cannot win. It _cannot win._

Charles’ breathing is ragged and his thoughts wild as he races down the corridors, bursting through door after door, and running through hallway after hallway, though suspiciously he never encounters any staff. The realization of why this must be makes his heart beat at an alarming rate, and he pushes himself to run even faster than he previously thought he could. At the back of his mind, Erik abruptly begins to struggle even more, and Charles, so focused on the task at hand, finally lets his control slip away as he rounds the last corner.

Horror flashes through him, and he skids to a halt as he sees the door to the Diva’s suite already open. The body of one of her attendants lies on the ground, his eyes glassy and unseeing, a trickle of blood visible at the corner of his mouth and a large seeping red stain creeping across his chest. Charles feels his heart leap into his throat. From the suite he can hear the guttural grunting language of the D’Khantuun, and suddenly the memory of just a few days ago springs to the forefront of his mind: the alarms blaring, the terrifying calmness of Priest Losal as he’d recognized his doom, the sickening crack of Jorjun falling into the viewscreen, the song in Belyan’s mind as she’d died.

He sets his jaw, his whole body shaking. Without thinking, he steps forward, shrugging out of his constricting suit jacket and ripping off the tie, throwing them both ferociously to the side. It’s been years since he’s last thrown a punch, but although the Oyemai were peaceful, self-defence training was part of his education as an Element. He is, after all, the protector of the universe, and not everyone had wept when the Elements died out. He has enemies too, as is now painfully obvious, and it stood to reason that he should at least be able to protect himself as well as the rest of the cosmos.

Taking a deep breath to center his thoughts, he steps over the threshold and into the Diva’s suite, immediately catching the attention of five of the seven D’Khantuun inside. They smile greedily, training their guns on him, and Charles, despite the odds, smiles back. He could do this with his mind, he thinks. But he’d rather do it with his hands.

 

*

 

Erik is still frozen to his seat, his panicked mind whirring with impossible plans of how to escape Charles’ hold when he hears the first scream. It’s from a woman at the back of the auditorium, and a second later, it’s followed by another handful of shouts, and a single piercing, undulating yell, and then finally, a volley of phaser fire. The orchestration immediately grinds to a halt, several shots ricocheting off the chandelier. The Diva, almost as frozen as Erik, glances around in a sudden panic. Another volley of phaser fire blasts out across the stage, narrowly missing them in the front row, and Erik shouts, struggling harder than ever against his invisible bonds, gasping as he finds himself suddenly released.

His first instinct is to dive to the floor, and he throws himself forward with all his might, nearly colliding with the front of the stage as the use of his limbs returns to him faster than he’d been expecting. On the floor, a second later, he remembers the Diva, helpless as a sitting duck, and he raises his head towards the stage, trying to figure out a plan to reach her. But something else catches his eye as he looks up that makes his blood run cold. _Raven_ has pulled herself up over the lip of the stage and is shouting to the Diva, holding out her hand, urging her to climb down.

“Raven!” Erik yells desperately over the screaming at the back of the theatre.

It’s all he can get out before another round of fire starts up and he’s forced to duck, shutting his eyes tightly, praying to whatever deity is listening that Raven hasn’t been hit. The phaser fire ceases and Erik instantly looks towards the stage again. It’s empty. For one brief second his heart pounds erratically in his chest, then he feels a tug on his leg. He looks into the row behind him and sees Raven staring at him wide-eyed.

“I’ve got her!” she breathes, and sure enough, at her side, hands wrapped tightly around Raven’s elbow is the Diva.

“Hello, Erik Lehnsherr,” she says, and her speaking voice is calm and lower than Erik imagined it would be. With a jolt he realizes she’s blind, her eyes clouded and unseeing despite how she’d seemed to look right at each of them while up on the stage. She turns her head with a small smile. “Hello, Raven Darkholme. I’m happy to meet you at last.”

“You know my name?” Raven asks, still wide-eyed, like she can hardly believe it.

“Of course I do,” the Diva says warmly.

“Erik! Raven!” Moira shouts, and Erik is abruptly snapped back to reality, his gaze finding Moira at the end of the row of chairs. More blasts of phaser fire go off, and more people scream. Moira beckons at them frantically. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“We can’t leave without Charles!” Logan reminds them as they all hurry down the row towards the aisle.

Erik grits his teeth so tightly they creak, desperately casting his mind out but without Charles to forge the connection, he’s met with silence. “I don’t know where he went.”

“I sent him to my rooms,” Irene says. She and Raven have linked arms, and Raven appears to have no qualms about acting as a guide. “The stones he seeks are hidden there.”

“He didn’t have to go alone!” Erik bursts out, furious but not unhurt, mad at both himself and Charles in a confusing tangle of emotions that roil inside him.

“It is never an easy choice, to part ways,” Irene answers solemnly, and Erik is left with the feeling she’s purposefully left out giving away just how much he and Charles mean to each other. He’s grateful for her discretion, but at the same time it still rankles.

“Less talking, more moving,” Moira says shortly, and as a group they run up the long aisle towards the long row of exit doors at the back of the auditorium. Most of the rest of the crowd has already cleared out, and Erik is glad they’ve missed the stampede, but more screaming and phaser blasts are coming from out in the hallway beyond.

“Who’s shooting up the place, anyway?” Logan demands as they reach the doors.

“D’Khantuun,” Irene supplies, “they are here for the stones too.”

And Charles went alone to Irene’s suite, Erik thinks with cold horror.

“Can you lead us to your room?” Moira asks Irene intently.

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll head there,” Moira decides, “because we need to find Charles and help secure the stones. Everyone try to stick together, it’s going to be chaos out there. And for god’s sake don’t do anything stupid.” She shoots Erik a meaningful glance, but he barely registers it. “Let’s go.”

She pushes the doors open and they step out into a madhouse. People are running in all directions, screaming, while a pair of D’Khantuun do everything in their power to trash the place, firing off bolts of plasma seemingly at random, hitting the walls and expensive decor while chasing after people here and there for short distances before rounding on someone new. Their only purpose here seems to be to cause mayhem and terror, and Erik grits his teeth at the way they seem to be profusely enjoying it.

“Where’s the cruise security?” Logan demands as they jog along one of the walls at Irene’s direction, heading back towards the hall that will lead them to the lobby.

“Held up fighting more D’Khantuun elsewhere, probably,” Moira shouts back over the din, “and I doubt there’s a lot of security to begin with, no one ever expected Fhloston Paradise getting attacked!”

“How far is it to your room?” Erik asks, jogging along beside the Diva and Raven so they’re somewhat sheltered in case any random blasts come in this direction.

“Fortunately I have a ground-floor suite,” Irene replies, “but it’s on the opposite side of the resort from where we are now. We’ll have to pass back through the lobby.”

“No problem,” Raven says confidently, but her blue is a few shades paler than normal. She’s only a civilian, Erik thinks to himself as they crunch their way through the shattered remains of a chandelier, with no military conditioning or training.

With a growl, Erik spins around and reaches out with his powers, feeling for pipes or some kind of infrastructure in the walls. The hotel is already damaged enough, so a few more holes in the walls will barely register. Making sure not to grab onto too many metal parts and risk destroying the structural integrity of the wall, Erik rips the metal outwards with a loud crash that sets off even more screaming. Clenching his fist, he hurls the metal at the D’Khantuun and wraps it around them, dragging them down to the floor while they struggle and grunt, shouting curses in their strange, guttural language.

He could squeeze them until they pop, he thinks as he winds the metal tighter. The D’Khantuun are barely able to move, flopping like fish on the deck. They would deserve it, for slaughtering Charles’ friends and nearly destroying Charles himself, and Erik would’ve never known him, never known he was missing such an intimate piece of himself—

“Erik!” Moira’s hand claps down on his shoulder, giving him a firm shake. “We don’t have time, leave them!”

Erik shakes himself and blinks, snapping out of the dark, hazy cloud of thought. “Right,” he says tersely, turning on his heel and taking off running to catch up with Raven, Irene, and Logan.

“Good work stopping them,” Moira adds quietly from beside him, and Erik nods once.

They follow the hallway, retracing the destructive path of the D’Khantuun. It looks like they’re in some kind of strange, dystopian holovid, with the former opulence of the hotel destroyed and ruined while screams ring out in the distance. It should be surreal, but all Erik can focus on is finding Charles, getting to Charles, making sure Charles is safe.

Rounding a corner, Erik barely has enough time to shout a warning before they’re attacked. Two D’Khantuun slam into him and Moira from the side, and Raven screams Erik’s name while Logan snarls. Erik hits the ground hard, rolling to the side to avoid being bludgeoned by a solid table leg, wielded by the D’Khantuun like a club in one hand. Desperate, he kicks up, feet slamming into the D’Khantuun’s thick chest as hard as he can.

Out of nowhere Logan barrels into the D’Khantuun, long claws extended out from his knuckles and flashing dangerously as he knocks the D’Khantuun clear off of Erik entirely. Erik doesn’t bother to try and follow, instead scrambling to his feet and running to Moira’s aid—Raven’s already there, Irene tucked into an alcove safely off to the side, and together they wrestle the D’Khantuun off of Moira and turn it into a three-against-one match. Erik rips out another piece of pipe from the wall again, and faced with the promise of defeat the D’Khantuun takes one last look at its companion being floored by Logan, whose claws strike sparks off the walls, before turning and running, ducking around the corner and disappearing from view.

“Not our problem,” Moira reminds Erik when he automatically moves to give chase. She’s panting, a large scratch on her cheek slowly oozing blood, but otherwise she appears to be fine. “Nice work, Raven, with that roundhouse kick. Let’s keep going.”

“Thanks,” Raven says proudly, and Erik manages to cuff her on the shoulder in agreement as she passes by to link arms with Irene again.

“Come on,” Logan says flatly, standing over his groaning D’Khantuun opponent. His razor-sharp claws slide back into his fists with a loud _snikt_.

“We’re almost to the lobby,” Irene says as they start moving again.

“Not going to be an easy crossing,” Moira says, and going by the screams steadily growing louder and louder as they draw closer to the lobby, Erik’s inclined to agree.

The hallway is a hurricane of chaos, piles of rubble littering the ground from where phaser blasts have destroyed the walls or decor. A large crowd of people is trapped, herded back and forth like panicked sheep by grinning D’Khantuun who threaten them with phasers, firing off a wild round of blasts every few seconds. There are at least twenty D’Khantuun, and they have a scant few seconds before they’re noticed, four of the nearest D’Khantuun catching sight of their little group where they hover in the entranceway of the hall and charging.

“Run!” Raven shouts, and without meaning to they’ve suddenly split in four different directions.

Erik finds himself swept up immediately into the panicking crowd, ducking through people to lose the D’Khantuun on his tail. People start screaming again and he hears the D’Khantuun let out a bellow of rage, but Erik’s too busy craning his neck, trying to figure out where the hell Moira, Logan, or Raven and Irene have gotten to.

Not looking where he’s going, Erik plows directly into someone, knocked clear off his feet by the impact and hitting the ground hard. Dazed, it takes him a vital few seconds to recuperate his senses, head ringing, and in that time the D’Khantuun catches up to him, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him up to his knees, choking and sputtering.

The D’Khantuun is drawing back a fist, leering down at him while Erik casts his powers out wildly, grasping for anything metal, when a loud voice booms out above all the noise.

“ _THE HIIIIIIIIIIIILLS ARE ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE,_ ” Wade Wilson sings as he drops down out of a panel in the ceiling, landing on top of the cracked fountain in the center of the room. He pulls out two phasers, one in each hand, and pirouettes in place, extending his arms out all the way and firing both phasers wildly as he spins, sending plasma blasts in all directions like some kind of tornado of death. “ _WITH THE SOOOOOUUUUND OF MUUUUUUSIIIIIIIC!_ ”

The D’Khantuun holding onto Erik howls when a random blast hits him in the chest, dropping Erik and tumbling over backwards. Coughing, Erik lands on his hands and crawls forward, dragging himself over to the nearest side table, trying to take cover as cruise guests and D’Khantuun alike stampede in terror. Oddly enough, none of Wade’s blasts hit any of the guests—the only ones falling seem to be D’Khantuun. What the fuck.

“ _WITH SOOOONGS THEY HAVE SUUUUUNG_ ,” Wade continues to sing, carelessly dropping his phasers down into the fountain with a splash, “ _FOR A THOOOUSAAAND YEEEEAAAARS!_ ”

“What the fuck,” Erik finds himself saying out loud as he watches as Wade reaches back over his shoulders and draws two actual swords, brandishing them up into the air with a flourish, “what the fuck, what the _fuck_ —”

“ _THE HIIIIIIILLS FILL MY HEAAAAAART_ ,” Wade sings, launching himself off the top of the fountain and flipping through the air. He lands on his feet like a cat and then straightens, almost daintily bounding over towards the closest D’Khantuun. “ _WITH THE SOOOOOOUUUUND OF MUUUUUSIIIIIIIIIIC!_ ”

His singing is accented with a dull, wet thud and the screaming D’Khantuun as it holds up the stump of its arm before Wade runs it through completely, the scream cutting off with a stomach-churning gurgle. Erik stares in blank shock as Wade continues to sing, whirling around the lobby and slicing up the D’Khantuun with his flashing blades, never missing a beat—even when he allows groups of screaming cruise guests to run past him, finally able to sprint out of the room to safety.

At one point five of the D’Khantuun try to gang up on Wade at once, phaser blasters cocked and ready to fire, but Wade merely spins in place again, belting out his song and decapitating all five of them at once. Their heads roll from their shoulders and their bodies drop a delayed second later, and Wade leaps like a gazelle over their bodies and begins a series of cartwheels over towards another D’Khantuun, still singing.

The ringing in Erik’s head has gone down and he’s beginning to feel more confident in his ability to stand, though he’s still feeling vaguely nauseous. Instead of attempting to get up just yet, he tries to look for his companions again, but hardly anyone is left in the lobby anymore aside from Wade and the D’Khantuun; most of the people have finally managed to make a run for it, escaping down one of the other hallways or running outside. Erik can only hope Moira, Logan, Raven, and Irene managed to group together again in the chaos and continue on to Irene’s rooms.

He can’t begrudge them for continuing on without him, but nevertheless he’s still frustrated, willing his head to stop spinning enough for him to follow. He _has_ to find Charles.

“ _AND I’LLLLL SIIIIIING_ ,” Wade sings, using the broken remains of a chair as a springboard to vault himself up into the air, hopping across the tops of three D’Khantuun’s heads, sword blades flashing. “ _OOOOOONCCCCCE_ ,” he draws the word out theatrically as he jumps off the last one and lands on top of the table Erik’s crouched beneath, and a split second later all three D’Khantuun howl in pain and crumble to the ground, deep gash marks in their necks and shoulders. “ _MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!_ ”

The door at the end of the lobby bursts open, and with a sinking feeling Erik watches as another twenty or so D’Khantuun march inside, all of them toting phasers that they aim directly at Wade as they come to a stop in the center of the room in front of him. With their backs to the wall, there’s no chance of Wade or Erik escaping. Gritting his teeth, Erik sends out his power in shaky tendrils, feeling around for the largest piece of metal he can find. He’s certainly not going down without a fight.

“You can threaten me all you want,” Wade announces into the silence of the faceoff, and Erik hears him shifting around on the table’s surface above him, “but I’m never gonna _gIVE YOU UP, NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN, NEVER GONNA RUN AROUND AND DESERT YOU_ —”

Erik yanks out the fixtures of the giant crystal chandelier hanging above the D’Khantuun’s heads, and then throws his arms up to cover his face as the entire thing comes crashing down in an earsplitting shatter, sending shards of glass and crystal flying in all directions. The sound almost drowns out the howls and screams of the D’Khantuun as they’re crushed, a few random phaser blasts going off but Erik doesn’t feel the intense, burning pain of the plasma.

When he deems it safe enough to look, Wade is flouncing around the pile of rubble in the center of the room where the D’Khantuun lie buried by the remains of the chandelier and the huge chunks of plaster from the ceiling that came down with it, cheerfully hacking away at anything still twitching. Erik decides not to watch.

Instead he drags himself out from beneath the table, coughing as the dust settles, and climbs shakily up to his feet. The entire lobby is silent and empty, only the sounds of distant shouts and screams giving away how the cruise ship is still under attack.

“Dude!” Wade sees Erik and bounces over, and for a moment Erik braces himself to be ready to rip the deadly blades straight out of the insane party caterer’s hands, but Wade merely slips his swords back over his shoulders into their respective sheaths. “What the fuckus was that ruckus, am I right?! That was wild, man, like Richard Nixon would be _so_ proud.”

“What the fuck,” Erik says.

“Fuck a duck,” Wade agrees cheerfully, clapping Erik on the shoulder companionably. “Except don’t, bro. Be kind to your web-footed friends. A duck could be somebody’s mother, you know.”

“Do you know where the Diva’s rooms are?” Erik asks Wade abruptly. He doesn’t have time to even attempt to make sense out of all the weird shit pouring from Wade’s mouth.

“Yes,” Wade responds promptly, “I will take the ring to Mordor. Follow me.” He takes off across the room, stopping at the entrance to one of the hallways and turning to beckon at Erik.

Erik has no choice to follow, shaking off the last of his dizziness and jogging after him, hoping he’s not about to be led somewhere as equally random as Wade himself.

He doesn’t have time to get sidetracked now.

 

*

 

There are two D’Khantuun standing sentinel in the entryway to the suite, all of their usefulness lost by the way their backs are turned to the door. Inside, the Diva Suite is a complete mess; overturned furniture, ripped-apart luggage, and torn clothing are strewn all over the living and dining room that are visible from the doorway. More than a few smoking phaser fire holes line the walls. The other five D’Khantuun, seemingly the party most guilty for the destruction, are the first to spot Charles. Their alarmed grunting and pointing alerts the sentinels that something is up, but before they can even turn around, Charles brings one sprawling to the floor with a kick to the back of its knees before jumping at the other, throwing all the weight of his shoulder into its side and sending it crashing into the arched doorway, its head hitting the wall with a dull _thunk_.

He throws the unconscious heap of a body off of him, stepping over the other sentinel struggling to get to its feet and knocking it out with a carefully placed kick to the side of its temple. The remaining D’Khantuun stare at him for a moment in stunned silence, covered in the detritus of plaster and ransacked clothing items settled on their long spindly limbs and large foreheads. The spell is broken, however, when the first D’Khantuun lets out a long, guttural groan, lifting his phaser and firing straight at Charles.

The bolt misses, taking out a painting on the wall just over Charles’ shoulder, and Charles rolls to the floor, somersaulting towards the D’Khantuun as the rest of them open fire, missing him by mere inches. He stays low to the ground, dodging around an upturned chair and sweeping the first D’Khantuun’s feet out from under it with a kick. Immediately, he disarms it and knocks it out at the same time with a foot under its chin. The remaining D’Khantuun roar angrily, shooting down at him, and this time, one of the phaser blasts manages to graze his arm, leaving behind a searing pain and the smell of burning cloth and skin, but Charles hardly notices it. He leaps back to his feet and grabs the light fixture above, swinging his legs in front of him at the same time so they catch one of the D’Khantuun in the chest and send it reeling into two of its brethren.

Only one D’Khantuun remains on its feet and begins firing at Charles almost willy-nilly. He drops down from the fixture, twisting and ducking easily out of the range of phaser blasts, throwing himself behind a large dining room set. Several of the chairs are missing, their broken parts strewn around the suite, but by some miracle the large vase on top of the table has remained intact. Deciding to risk it, Charles quickly pops back up over the top of the table and grabs the vase before ducking underneath again to shield himself from the phaser blasts that immediately rain down upon him.

For all they are an intensely dangerous war-like species, the D’Khantuun might come from an excess of brawn rather than much—if any—brain. Charles knows this, and if anything demonstrates it first hand, it’s the way they don’t notice he’s moved to crawl underneath the table instead of staying in one place. He’s halfway down the length and they’re still shooting at the end they saw him duck under. Something on that end catches fire, and the D’Khantuun begin cheering loudly, turning to one another to bump chests and shake their fists in the air. It’s at this point that Charles decides to roll out on the opposite side of the table, hurling the vase with all his might at the back of one of the D’Khantuun’s heads.

He hits it full on, and the D’Khantuun’s legs crumple beneath it, sending it flopping onto one of its comrades. The D’Khantuun accidentally drops its gun in the process of trying to lift its fallen friend back to its feet, and as soon as the phaser hits the floor it sends another round of fire that hits one D’Khantuun in the back of the leg and sends everyone else—Charles included—ducking behind furniture for cover. With a massive heave of his shoulder, Charles manages to overturn the table, using it as a shield once more, but as soon as the blasts from the phaser die out, Charles is the first back on his feet.

Grabbing one of the remaining upright dining room chairs, he leaps into the living room where the D’Khantuun had taken refuge. He sees that at least one of them isn’t going to be getting up, having been peppered with phaser blasts, and steps over the body with quiet feet. Only two remain, and from the trail of sticky blue blood that leads down a short hallway further into the suite, it’s safe to say one of them is injured. He raises the chair in front of him like a lion tamer and follows the trail, senses alert and steps soft until he reaches a door smeared with more blood. He casts his mind out carefully, just the lightest of gossamer touches, until he feels the two presences inside.

One of the D’Khantuun—the one whose mind is not pulsing with pain—is stationed by the door, phaser at the ready. The other is lying behind the bed, examining its injured leg. Charles takes a deep breath and opens the door. The uninjured D’Khantuun starts firing at once, but Charles quickly knocks the phaser out of its hands, gaining another graze in the process, this time to the side of his thigh. He throws the chair to the side and covers the distance between them with two quick strides while the D’Khantuun stares dumbly at its empty hands. It looks up just as Charles comes to a stop in front of it, just in time to take in Charles’ reeled back fist before it connects with the side of its jaw, sending it sprawling to the floor in a lifeless heap.

The last D’Khantuun lets out another roar of anger, attempting to struggle to its feet but before it can, Charles crosses the space, reaching down to grab the phaser he’d knocked from the other’s hands by the barrel and swinging it up so it hits the last D’Khantuun in the temple. It gives one last grunt of pain before crumpling down to lay half on the floor, half on the bed.

For a moment, Charles just stares at it, still shaking slightly with rage. In the distance, he can hear screams and shouts from the rest of the hotel guests and it only makes the pit in his stomach grow deeper. He brought this on them. If they hadn’t set up the rendezvous to get the stones, the D’Khantuun wouldn’t have ever come here. These people would have been safe. Why hadn’t they picked somewhere more secluded?

He swallows and turns on his heel, making his way back into the living room. He extends his powers out again, making sure none of the D’Khantuun he’d knocked out are waking up any time soon, but just as he rounds the corner, he feels another, more familiar mind advancing, along with a more foreign one.

Erik. He lets out an involuntary breath, half elated, half angry that Erik had followed him here after all. The weakest part of him wants to run out and meet them halfway, to hold onto Erik until he’s convinced himself that he’s alive and unhurt and maybe everything can still be alright.

Before he can work out what he should do, Erik bursts in through the door with Wade, of all people, and comes to an abrupt halt as he takes in the room—scattered D’Khantuun in various positions on the floor, and all the wreckage from the fight on top of the mess from the D’Khantuun’s search—before his gaze comes to a stop on Charles. Charles can feel Erik’s sharp bolt of relief at seeing Charles alive and unharmed, followed by a cloud of disbelief— _Charles did this Charles fought the D’Khantuun by himself_ —that Charles mentally bats away, miffed, but then to his surprise comes a hot wave of admiration— _Charles fought the D’Khantuun by_ **_himself,_ ** _Charles wiped the_ **_floor_ ** _with them._

It’s even harder to keep his anger in the face of Erik’s appreciative regard, but Charles rallies, swallowing, his jaw set. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Erik’s gaze narrows, and there at last is the sharp anger, tinged with quickly-buried hurt. “What the hell was that, Charles,” he asks in a tight voice. Both of them ignore Wade as he bounces around the room somewhere in the background, making loud remarks about the D’Khantuun and something called Spaceballs. “What were you planning on doing without us? How were you planning on getting the stones back to Earth?”

“Logan and I could’ve worked something out,” Charles makes himself say.

“That’s it, then?” Erik says quietly, and this is worse, much worse, than facing the fire of anger and frustration whirling in Erik’s mind Charles can feel like air temperature between them. On the outside, Erik is nothing but cold. “What about—” he cuts off, shaking his head and looking away, but not before Charles catches the completed thought. _What about me? What about us?_

“Find the stones,” Erik says to the overturned table, and Charles welcomes the excuse to turn away because he doesn’t know if the way his heart is wrenching is showing on his face.

“Hot diggity dog,” Wade announces into the heavy silence, apropos of nothing, “what’s the past-tense of _ain’t_ ? _Wain’t_ ? This town sure _wain’t_ big enough for the both of ya.”

“Erm,” Charles says, sparing Wade a glance as he picks his way over to the wall just to the left of the entryway. “Thanks, I think.”

“Any time, my man,” Wade replies, following right along at Charles’ heels. “Do you know how green this is?”

“Uh.”

“Super green. _Super_ green. Like emerald-grass-bottle green, like the greenest little jalapeño,” Wade says gleefully, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’re my hero now, pardnah.”

Charles smiles thinly. “Yes, well you know what would be super… uh… super green of you right now?” he asks.

Wade shakes his head enthusiastically. “No, but you just say the word and I’m there!”

“Could you please go and find the others?” Charles says earnestly. “Make sure they’re all right and keep them safe until they can make it back to our ship?”

Wade holds his hand over his heart before dropping into an abrupt, low bow. “Your wish is my command,” he says gravely. Then he stands just as swiftly, grabbing the swords from the holster on his back and swinging them out and away to his sides, taking off in the direction of the fighting at full tilt. Charles hears a faint “COWABUNGAAAA!” tapering off in the distance, and then he and Erik are left in the silence.

Charles can tell Erik is looking at him, but he refuses to look back and give him the satisfaction of knowing how difficult this is. He crosses over to the wall with quick, staccato steps that clack on the polished wood floor and crouches down to where the spot where the Diva had indicated there was a secret compartment. Placing his palm against the drywall, he begins to drag his fingers slowly across the surface, feeling for the minutest crack or divot to sink his nails into. Even concentrated as he is on the task at hand, he can still feel Erik’s gaze boring into the back of his neck.

“You should go with Wade,” he tells Erik evenly. “Find Moira and Raven and get out of here while you still can.”

Erik lets out an un-amused snort. “Right,” he says under his breath. “Like I’m leaving you here by yourself.”

Charles pauses, shoulders hunched, bristling. Despite his better judgement he whirls around, still crouched, and glares up at Erik. “I can take care of myself, you know,” he snaps back. Sweeping an arm out, he gestures around to the fallen D’Khantuun. “Unless you haven’t figured that out already.”

“Don’t act like I’m stupid!” Erik says, taking a step forward, anger radiating from his voice and in his mind. “I know what you’re doing, and I’m not buying it. You think you can just sacrifice yourself to save everyone else like some Greek tragedy, but if you think I’m just going to sit around and let you die, then you obviously don’t know anything.”

“I’m not a child!” Charles shouts back, so incensed he stands and takes another step forward so they’re practically in each other’s faces. “This is _my_ burden to bear and no one else’s. It always has been. I shouldn’t have even let you come along.”

“And how were you going to get to Fhloston without us, huh? Can _Logan_ fly a ship?” Erik’s grin is all teeth and derisiveness.

“I would have found a way,” Charles snarls.

Erik only looks more smug. “And how are you going to find the stones now? Just keep feeling the wall until Wade brings back the others? And then are you going to command us to go back to the ship while you and Logan take off on your suicide mission?”

Charles could almost strangle him. He should do exactly as Erik said, he thinks. In fact, he should dive back in Erik’s mind again right now and send him on his way to back to the Magneto to wait for the others already. But as much as Charles hates to admit it to himself, he _is_ almost at Erik’s mercy if he wants to get back to Earth in time to do the ritual. It’s possible he could mind-control another guest into giving him a ride—if all the uninjured guests haven’t already fled—but Charles is positive the others wouldn’t leave him even if he begged, and he can’t continuously control Erik, Raven, Moira, and Irene to just leave without him while he finds his own way back to Earth. The distance alone would be far too great for that, to say nothing of the drain it would put on his powers.

Now is not the time to admit defeat, however, so Charles merely turns around and crouches back down to feel along the wall.

“What I do with my life in order to _save this universe_ is none of your business, Erik,” Charles says harshly.

Erik’s voice is cracked and brittle. “Oh, but what I do with mine is yours?”

Charles bites the inside of his lip hard, pausing for just the fraction of a second. Of course Erik doesn’t see how important this is to him, or how hard it is to keep going over and over it. Can’t Erik just take his life and be grateful? Opening eyes he realize he’d shut, Charles returns to his search without responding. He’s forces himself to push all his anger and fear to the side and to focus all of his energy on finding the stones. Without them, none of this argument matters at all.

He’s so focused that he doesn’t notice Erik stepping closer until he’s right there next to Charles, his leg so close to Charles all he would have to do is lean over another inch to be pressed up against it. Charles steels himself, summoning all his strength to shout at Erik to get away from him, when he hears a quiet hissing, popping noise coming from the wall a half a foot above his hand. He quickly drops it away and looks up just in time to see a small hidden door slide open to the side, revealing the secret compartment behind.

For the first time in what feels like hours, Charles manages to forget the rest of the universe as he zeroes in on the sight. His heart hammers in his chest, his breathing quickening, and he practically jumps at the opening, reaching inside with feverish fingers. They close around something cold and triangular and smooth to the touch, almost like a well-worn pebble, and he lets out a helpless little laugh as he pulls his hand and the thing back into the light of the room. Beside him, he hears Erik take in a sharp breath and they both look on in amazement at the first of the four ancient stones.

It’s smaller than Charles expected, somehow; approximately just over half the length of his forearm, but even the less-than-impressive exterior does little to mask the power pulsing within. Maybe it’s because he is so tightly connected to this thing, but Charles almost believes he can feel a pulse within the lifeless rock, beating away just behind its blue-grey exterior.

He brings the stone closer, turning it so the light catches in the shadow of three deep grooves at one end. They trail up from the base, curving jaggedly back and forth. When Charles brushes his fingers over them he feels something almost like a spark of electricity, there for just an instant before it disappears. Charles runs over the markings again, but nothing happens, except maybe an almost imperceptible tingling that raises the hair on his arm underneath his shirt. He shivers slightly and moves to cradle the stone in his other arm, reaching in to take out the next one.

“Here,” Erik says, and Charles turns to see him crouched down as well and holding his suit jacket by the corners like a makeshift bag. His voice is quiet and tense, and he looks down at the stone in Charles’ arm like he’s afraid it’s going to explode at any minute. He licks his lips. “Put them in this. It’ll be easier to carry.”

Charles frowns for a moment, unsure, but Erik shakes the bag-jacket at him encouragingly, and with the siren song of the stones urging him onward, he nods once quickly and hands the first stone over before reaching in for the next. He passes each stone silently over to Erik without looking as he takes them one-by-one out of their hiding place. They make silent clacking noises as they bump against each other in Erik’s jacket, the sound made even louder by the otherwise reigning silence in the room, and when the stones are all safe, Charles lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, his fingers trembling slightly from the excitement.

Distantly, he realizes that the shouts from the other parts of the hotel have died down. That’s a good sign, he reasons. Since no D’Khantuun have interrupted them, it must mean they’ve been defeated by the hotel security, or perhaps by Wade single-handedly. The thought makes Charles grin suddenly, and it’s all he can do to hold back the hysterical bark of laughter that wants to accompany it.

“What?” Erik asks, a note of concern in his voice.

“Nothing,” Charles says. He shakes his head and begins schooling his face into something he hopes is less manic, standing up and dusting off his hands as if he could physically wipe off the weird sensation left behind from the stones.

Erik frowns suddenly as he watches him, staring at a point just below Charles’ shoulder. “You’re bleeding,” he says.

Surprised, Charles looks down at the spot on his arm where Erik’s pointing. Sure enough, a thin, semi-cauterized scrape on his upper left bicep is slowly oozing blood, staining the crisp white cloth of his shirt. Suddenly he remembers the pain in his arm and on his opposite leg after the flash of phaser fire. The wounds are barely more than scratches with hardly enough pain to remember them with all the more pressing things happening, but there nonetheless.

“It’s fine,” he says truthfully. “Barely even hit me. They won’t take more than a minute to patch up, I’m sure there’s something in the bathroom I could use. Just watch the stones for a minute and I’ll—”

“Ah,” an unfamiliar voice says suddenly from the entryway. “That’s the money word I was waiting to hear.”

Charles feels his very blood grind to a halt in his veins, arms and legs seeming hollow as he turns toward the door. Standing just inside the threshold is a man Charles has never seen in his life. He looks to be about the same age as Logan, though much taller and much more willowy. The hair at his temples is greying. He’s wearing a suit with white pants and a knee-length, shiny green jacket, a small purple scarf knotted about his neck and tucked into garishly white shirt that matches his garishly white teeth in his garish, far-too-confident smile. Perched on his hip is some kind of phaser, about three times the size of the D’Khantuun’s, and though it’s not pointed directly at him and Erik at the moment, everything about the man’s demeanor says that that’s not because he isn’t capable of shooting them in a second.

“Now,” the man says, sauntering a few more feet into the room. “How about you just hand over the stones like the peaceable people I know you are and I’ll let you go on your way.”

“Shaw?” Erik splutters, clutching the stones tighter, eyes wide with disbelief. “Sebastian Shaw the military contractor?”

Shaw’s smile widens by a few teeth, and he drops his head in a small bow. “Happy to see my reputation proceeds me,” he answers. “Afraid I can’t say the same for you, although that hardly matters. In a few hours, you aren’t going to be anyone at all, are you?” He laughs genially, but the sound only makes bile rise up in the back of Charles’ throat.

“We’re not giving you anything,” Charles snaps. Now that the first shock has worn away, he’s starting to get angry again.

Cautiously, he begins to unreel his telepathy, ghosting along the surface of this man Shaw’s thoughts, but as soon as he touches them his mental fingers are burned by what he finds there, and he flinches physically back. The man’s mind is like a roiling cauldron of scalding-hot mercury. It’s not like Logan’s mind, which he physically can’t get into—he could get into Shaw’s mind if he really wanted—but something about this man is so inherently abhorrent that Charles doesn’t want to use his powers if he can help it. He pauses, swallowing back more sick creeping up his throat. At least Shaw hadn’t noticed his mental digging and has continued right on with his coaxing.

“Come come now,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m not asking anything unreasonable, I don’t think. Don’t be heroes now, boys. I’m telling you from some first hand experience, heroes never prosper. It’s just fairy tales that make you think they do.” He visibly switches gears, his expression brightening as he steps a little further into the room. “Look, if you side with me, I can promise you your pick of the nuclear wasteland this universe is going to turn into in about twenty hours or so. Apart from the part of it I want of course, but let’s face it boys, that leaves—” he chuckles, “—a _lot_ of wasteland.”

“You’re an idiot,” Erik says. “The Dark Planet won’t leave anything for you. If it wins, all that’s left is death.”

Shaw shakes his head again and wags his finger at Erik like a disappointed Sunday school teacher. “Ah-ah-ah, see that’s where you’re wrong,” he replies. “On Earth? Yes, certainly. The next surrounding inhabited planets? Sure, that’s a fair assumption. But the whole entire universe in one fell swoop? No, son. The Dark Planet is a good businessperson. It _rewards_ its good employees—employees here meaning, all the inhabitants of the universe—with promotions. Perks for the apocalypse if you will. That’s where the Dark Planet and I are similar. We like to reward our good workers. Without chaos, there can be no innovation. Another way we’re similar; we both are innovators. Are you going to be on the side of the future, boys? Or are you going to be on the side of backwards superstition and habit?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Charles sees a bit of metal piping creeping in through the still-open door, and suddenly he notices that some of the tension in Erik’s body has to do with concentration, not just anxiety. He bites his lip, adrenaline beginning to pump through him once more as Erik’s fingers twitch and the pipe raises, lifting above Shaw’s head.

“I think I’m good where I am, thanks,” he says.

Then he brings the pipe crashing down on Shaw’s skull.

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

For one brilliant moment, Erik believes they’ve won. The pipe goes smashing into the side of Shaw’s head and he jerks, letting out a yelp of surprise. Erik breathes harshly, somehow disgusted and elated at the same time, but he decides to focus on the most important things. The stones are still safe in his grasp and Charles is safe beside him, letting out a quiet noise of relief now that the danger is passed.

But then Shaw’s body begins to ripple, starting at the point where the pipe had come down on his skull, and he shivers on the spot for a moment where he stands, not even losing his grip on his phaser. Erik’s jaw drops as he realizes what’s happening, but before he can do anything else, Shaw straightens back up again, shaking his head as if the pipe had been nothing more than an obnoxious fly.

He looks up at them with cold blue eyes and sets his shoulders. “Okay then,” he says, sounding almost pleased. “That’s the way you want to play it.”

In a second he’s raised his phaser straight at them, pulling the trigger, and Erik only just manages to grab Charles by the shoulder and pull him to the floor as phaser fire explodes overhead. The crash reverberates through Erik’s shoulder, bruising instantly, but at least they’re a sight better than the ripped to pieces living room wall. Before Shaw can react to the change in position, Erik grabs Charles by the arm and the belt buckle and drags him behind the nearest piece of furniture, an overturned couch. It isn’t much, but at least it’s something as Shaw opens fire once more, pelting their makeshift barricade until it catches fire. He doesn’t seem concerned that he hasn’t hit them yet—in fact, if Erik were a betting man, he’d say Shaw is enjoying toying with them.

The couch is becoming fast consumed by flames, their heat licking angrily at Erik’s face. He grits his teeth, looking around desperately for anything to use as a weapon or cover. Charles sees something first, though, because he shakes Erik’s leg roughly, grabbing his attention before nodding urgently at a table laying on its side just behind Erik’s turned back. Erik’s heart stutters hopefully in his chest at the sight, and he catches Charles’ gaze again, nodding back and grabbing his hand.

 _One… two…_ he thinks determinedly, and on the silent _three_ , he and Charles launch themselves sideways behind the table just as Shaw opens up fire on the couch once more, blasting it to bits. Something hits Erik’s calf as he jumps and he lets out a surprised yelp of pain, curling his leg in quickly behind the rest of the table before Shaw can shoot it off. Thoughts whirling wildly with frustration and fear, Erik reaches out for the closest, biggest piece of metal he can find—some dense piece of engineering in the wall just outside—and brings it crashing through into the suite towards where the phaser fire is coming from. From the accompanying surprised shout and sudden cease of fire, he figures he must have hit his target.

With not another moment to lose, Erik turns somewhat painfully and peers up over the top of the table just enough to see what’s happened. The metal, which looks to be part of a service door, hit Shaw square in the back. Although the blow would have been enough to knock any other person down for the count, Shaw’s whole body ripples again as he absorbs the impact, completely unharmed.

Time seems to slow down as Erik watches, thoughts flying at a thousand miles a second. He cycles through possible defensive strategies; hitting Shaw again and trying to make a run for it, wrapping him in metal and hoping he can’t use the energy he’s absorbed to break out, hitting the phaser out of his hands and hoping he doesn’t somehow absorb the blow. He’s so riveted he almost jumps out of his skin when he feels a strong hand pressing on his leg, accompanied with a whisper in his mind.

_You’re bleeding, Erik._

He looks down and meets Charles’ anxious, wide-eyed but steady gaze for a second. Then looks down further to and sees Charles’ hands pressed up against a deep gash in his right leg, his strong, square fingers covered in Erik’s blood. Across the way, Shaw lets out an annoyed groan and straightens up, and Erik instantly sinks back to the floor, his back against the underside of the table and weight off his injured leg. The metal service door flies towards them just in the nick of time, shielding the table from the worst of the phaser fire, a defensive maneuver Erik executes almost without thought. Now that he sees the wound in his leg, he distant thrum of pain he’d been able to push aside comes roaring back.

He sucks in a breath raggedly through his teeth, clenching his hands into fists. The amount of blood is a little alarming. Phaser fire usually burns more than it cuts. This seems to be doing both, though, which means the gun Shaw is using must have some sort of modified ammunition more lethal than the average phaser, which is saying something. Erik should have realized; of course the insane military contractor would only come to a firefight armed with the best of the best.

Charles’ hands are shaking against Erik’s skin, and when Erik looks over at him, he sees Charles’ face has gone as white as a sheet. He’s biting his lip as he stares down at the wound, obviously thinking hard. The sound of footsteps echoes through the room as Shaw draws closer, but then the noise is drowned out with another blast from the phaser and the table behind them shakes. Erik reaches out for the pipe he’d picked up earlier and sends it hurtling at Shaw again, eliciting a swear and another ceasefire.

With every passing nanosecond, the look in Charles’ eyes becomes more determined and somehow more distant at the same time. His lips part and he takes a few harsh breaths through his mouth, audible in the otherwise silent suite. A concentrated frown creases his brow, and Erik stares at him in confusion, pressing his own hand to the wound in his leg as Charles’ grip begins to grow slack. Behind the table, Shaw gasps abruptly. Erik braces himself for the inevitable rain of artillery, but one second passes, then another, then another. It doesn’t come.

“Charles—” he breathes.

Charles’ breath rushes out on a strained groan. “Quiet,” he snaps. “I’m holding him but not for long. You need to get out.”

Erik’s eyes widen for a moment as he realizes what Charles has said, but then he narrows them again, frowning. “Not without you.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Charles answers. “The stones are what he’s after you need to get them away from here while you can.”

“He’s not going to just let you go once they’re gone,” Erik says at once. He shifts, trying to straighten into a crouch, but his hands slide on his leg. Blood begins to trickle once more behind his fingers, and he’s forced to sit back down, wincing.

“Erik, just _go!_ ” Charles pleads, finally turning to look at him. His fingers snap to his temple and his jaw clamps shut, teeth grinding together as he fights desperately to retain his hold on Shaw’s mind. When he speaks again, it’s all in a rush. “Get the stones to the ship, I promise I’ll be right behind you.”

“I’m not leaving you here with this maniac!” Erik shouts.

Impatiently, he tugs at the cloth of his injured trouser leg, ripping it off in a strip before tying it firmly around the phaser wound, staunching the blood flow. It’s far from a perfect solution, but at least now he thinks he can stand without growing faint. If they’re going to make a run for it, Erik doesn’t want to be completely useless.

Charles watches him work, frustration evident on his features. He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, he doubles over, clutching his head with both hands, sucking in air through his teeth. Heart hammering, Erik takes him by the shoulders, shifting and trying to stand, ignoring the pain that lances through his leg. He’ll carry Charles out of here if he has to. He isn’t going to let Charles become a martyr, no matter how badly he seems to want to be one.

“Erik, please,” Charles says hoarsely, trying weakly to shake Erik’s hands off. “You don’t have time, plea—”

“What the fuck is going on?”

The intrusion makes both of them start, and immediately, Charles closes his eyes with a gasp, biting his lip and digging his fingers into his temples even harder. Erik, on the other hand, whips around in surprise. Moira, Logan, Raven, Irene, and Wade are all standing in the doorway, staring at the mess of the suite and at the man frozen in the center of the room, his phaser pointed out to the side and other arm raised as if to shield himself.

“He wants the stones!” Erik shouts at once. “He’s trying to kill us, but Charles—”

Erik barely has time to register that Wade has moved before the sharp glint of steel catches his eye. The two blades flash like beacons as Wade arcs them through the air, leaping with surprising grace towards the still immobile Shaw. Then a sickening _squish-crunch_ echoes through the room, and the front of Shaw’s suit blossoms suddenly with red. Next to him, Charles gasps in a hollow, choking breath and crumples forward, a hand falling from his temple to clutch at his stomach exactly where Erik can see two sword tips poking out of Shaw’s body before they’re retracted.

A horrible sickening, sinking feeling immediately washes over him. His hands fly to Charles’ shoulders again, supporting him before he can fall completely to the floor, but when he attempts to raise him, Charles’ head refuses to cooperate, staying tipped limply to the ground, a short curtain of hair hiding his face. All the pain in Erik’s leg is forgotten as the panic begins to rise. With shaking fingers, he reaches out to cup the side of Charles’ cheek, bringing his head up with as much gentleness as if he were a baby. The sight of his face, once Erik sees it, does little to assuage his fear.

Charles’ eyes are scrunched closed, forehead furrowed in pain and mouth slackly open. His skin has lost all traces of color and is now paler than paper, the smattering of freckles across his nose standing out starkly against the white. He’s breathing raggedly through his mouth, but at least he’s still breathing. The thought brings Erik the tiniest bit of relief, and he raises Charles higher, supporting him with an arm around his waist.

“What’s the matter?” Moira asks.

Erik ignores her for the moment, stroking Charles’ cheek with his thumb to try and rub some life him, shifting so Charles is sitting rather than crouching on the floor. “Charles,” he says evenly, “come on. Wake up, Charles, you’re going to be fine.”

Charles’ face scrunches tighter and he lets out a quiet groan that turns into a cough, but otherwise remains just as limp as before. Erik practically growls in frustration, tamping down the panic that’s threatening to rise again. He drops Charles’ waist in favor of picking up his hand and begins to chafe it roughly.

“Open your eyes for me, please, Charles,” he says softly, pretending he can’t hear the obvious pleading tone in his own voice.

At last he’s rewarded when Charles’ face scrunches again and he turns into Erik’s touch before turning away, his hand flexing in Erik’s grip. Just managing to hold back his breath of relief, Erik moves to support Charles’ back again, rubbing strong, reassuring circles there, trying to goad Charles into holding himself up. After a moment, Charles lets out another groan, but his face relaxes a bit as his eyelids flutter open for a fraction of a second before slamming shut once more. Suddenly, he goes rigid in Erik’s arms, his hands coming up to shove away from Erik’s chest as he twists in a struggle to free himself from the hold. In his surprise, Erik lets him go, which turns out maybe for the best because as soon as he’s free from Erik’s arms, Charles promptly throws himself to the side, catching himself on trembling arms before vomiting all over the floor.

Moira, who’s just made her way around the detritus to Erik’s side jumps back out of the way. “Holy shit,” she breathes. “Charles, what’s the matter?”

Unable to respond, Charles waves a violently shaking hand at her to keep her back and retches again. The whole of the suite has descended into silence once more. Everyone seems to be unable to quite understand what’s happened, and Erik’s can’t blame them. Just the past hour has been a whirlwind in and of itself. Raven, Irene, and Logan are still standing just inside the door watching the spectacle in confusion, while Wade stands to the side, cleaning his blades on his trouser leg, watching their little group behind the table.

Charles moans, wiping his hand across his mouth before spitting into the small pool of vomit between his hands. Now that he seems to have gotten it all out, Erik snakes a tentative arm around Charles’ waist once more, relaxing slightly when Charles doesn’t shove him off again. With a noise of discomfort, Charles sits back upright, one hand braced on the table and the other on Erik’s forearm, still shaking.

“My head,” he whispers hoarsely. “Hurts, so much.”

“We’ll get something for you on the ship,” Erik promises. “There’s a medkit and pain relievers, but you have to stand. Can you stand?”

Charles sighs, his eyes opening to just a sliver, and even that looks painful. Something in Erik’s chest clenches. “Yes,” he says at last, tightening his grip on Erik’s arm and holding the other out towards where Moira is still standing.

Between the two of them, with Erik pushing and Moira pulling, they manage to help Charles to his feet like a deadweight sack of potatoes. Once Charles is leaning safely against Moira’s shoulder, Erik moves to stand himself, completely forgetting about the gash in his leg until he starts to put his weight on it and a jolt of pain rockets through him. He yelps and falls back to the ground, hitting his elbow against the underside of the table sending another sharp stab of pain there.

Above him, Moira sighs. “Hells bells, what have you two gotten yourselves into,” she mutters. “Logan? Wade? Some help?”

Wade instantly perks up, bounding around Shaw’s crumpled body and hurtling the table while Logan lumbers along just behind him, his once pristine tux now ripped in several places and missing an entire sleeve.

“You really should fix that up a little better before you try to walk, Erik,” Moira says, inclining her head towards his leg.

Sure enough, blood is beginning to seep out from underneath his thin impromptu bandage, seeping down into his sock and shoe. Erik sighs tiredly but nods. He’ll be no good to anybody if he collapses from blood loss halfway back to the ship. Logan and Wade wait patiently by his side as Erik takes a leaf out of Logan’s book and tears off part of one of his sleeves, making it into a little square of padding to tie on with the bit of trouser leg he already has.

“Looks nasty,” Logan grunts when Erik begins to untie the binding covering the wound.

“Feels nasty, too,” Erik mutters.

From the doorway, Erik hears Raven let out a quiet, disgruntled noise. “Well at least you’re in once piece. Hotel security’s already started evacuating other passengers, even though the D’Khantuun are all… taken care of, thanks to Wade,” she says. Wade makes an “aw-shucks” gesture and twists his foot behind himself on one tippy-toe. “We’ve gotten this far. Luck’s got to be on our side.”

Which is of course when a crate next to one of the nearby fallen D’Khantuun opens itself with a hiss of hydraulics. The noise draws all their attention, heads whipping around to watch as an internal mechanism whirrs into life, lifting a stark red clock face out of its center. For one long moment, the face reads “5:00”. Then, as they watch in disbelief, the seconds begin counting down.

It hasn’t reached “4:57” before an alarms starts out somewhere in the hallway, red lights descending from the ceiling to circle rapidly and a placid, electronic voice says, “Please proceed quickly and calmly to the nearest exit” before repeating it in a string of languages.

“The fuck’s that about?” Logan asks.

“That’s the ship’s bomb alert system, Nard Dog,” Wade says, cheerful but blase, as if this information is overall inconsequential. “It only activates if it detects a live bomb onboard the ship.”

There’s a pause of silence, where they all waste three more seconds staring at the timer.

“Time to go,” Moira announces calmly, fortunately before anyone can dissolve into hysterics, “Logan and Mr. Wilson, if you’ll oblige, you take Erik. Charles, you stick with me. Irene?”

“I shall accompany you back to Earth, if that is acceptable,” Irene answers, just as serene, and beside her Raven looks like she’d rather cut off her own arm before abandoning her idol.

“We have plenty of room,” Moira answers with a nod, shifting her grip on Charles so it’ll be easier for them to walk. “Alright, let’s—”

“The stones,” Charles grits out suddenly, coming back to life a little, “someone get—”

“I’ve got ’em, Chuck,” Logan says, scooping them up off the floor where they’d fallen during Shaw’s attack. He bundles them up and tucks them safely under his arm before stepping towards Erik.

“Thank you,” Charles says, sounding relieved.

“Mr. Wilson,” Moira says, “if you could direct us to the shortest route to the docking bay, please.”

“Certainly, my fair lady!” Wade says loudly in Erik’s ear as he bends to help Logan lever Erik up to his feet. “Let’s BLOW THIS POPSICLE STAND BEFORE IT BLOWS _US_!”

“Stop yelling,” Erik snarls, caught awkwardly between Logan’s bulky frame and Wade’s wiry one. He has to hop along on his good foot while keeping his injured leg held up to avoid putting weight on it, his makeshift bandages already beginning to soak through with blood. He wants to crane his head around to see how Charles is holding up, but he’s too busy trying not to trip Wade and Logan up as they practically fly down the hallway.

The route Wade takes them is fortunately empty of any other living souls, most of the people onboard having already fled during the D’Khantuun’s initial attack. It’s a small mercy, especially given how ragtag their group is, and between his bouts of spiralling dizziness Erik is grateful they’re not also having to fight their way through a panicking crowd.

Fortunate also is the fact they don’t have to head for the lifeboats in order to escape from the ship—under Wade’s guidance, they bypass the chaos entirely and make straight for the docking bay where the private ships are tethered, the quick journey a mere blur in Erik’s mind overlaid with a constant haze of pain.

“Don’t you pass out on me yet, Lehnsherr,” Moira calls from behind as they hurry towards the gangway of their ship, “I need you for the launching sequence.”

“I’m not going to pass out,” Erik snaps, but he’s pretty sure he sounds like he’s drunk. He certainly feels like he is, the world still spinning as Logan and Wade grunt with the effort of dragging him up into the ship, pain and exhaustion at war with each other to see who gets to be the first to knock him out. Erik hangs onto consciousness with the same tenacity he applies to everything else in his life, gritting his teeth to keep from screaming at the sharp bolts of agony traveling up his leg with every step. Just a minute more.

“Over here,” he hears Logan say to Wade, and together they hoist Erik through his ship and the next thing he knows is the familiarity of the bridge, and they drop him down to sit in his pilot’s chair.

“Take Charles,” Moira orders somewhere behind him, and a second later she’s sliding into the chair beside Erik’s, fingers already flying across the console. “All of you get yourselves strapped in, this is going to be a fast takeoff so it’s going to be rough. Mr. Wilson, you’d better stay with us because you’re not going to have time to make it off this ship before the bomb explodes otherwise.”

“Aye, aye, Captain!”

Erik feels the engines come alive, and he makes himself focus, skipping his system checks and going straight into the navigation program. Moira’s also forgone her checklist and is already pushing the engines to warm up faster, detaching their moorings to the dock while Erik punches in a hastily-calculated vector to get them the hell out of the bay before they all go up in flames.

“Here we go,” Moira says, mostly for the benefit of everyone else but Erik glances over to meet her gaze and nods.

Together they push forward on the thrusters and with a loud roar the ship takes off, flying through the hangar with a burst of flames in their tail—if the screaming computer alerts are to be believed—and Erik’s nearly flattened backwards against his seat as the ship follows the sharp angle of his vector nearly straight up into the atmosphere as soon as they’re clear of the bay doors. Erik can hear Wade whooping, Raven screaming, and Logan cursing up a storm as they blast upwards, ascending so quickly that all the readings spewing across Erik’s screen are going haywire, not making any real sense, and Erik’s vital organs feel like they’re trying to combine into one.

“There’s the bomb!” Moira shouts as a huge heat output blooms on their radar far below, and Erik can only barely spare a moment to hope everyone got off the doomed ship safely before the combination of G-force and pain knocks him out entirely.

 

*

 

It’s quiet on the ship’s tiny medbay, especially with the only other occupant still sound asleep. Charles lies on his back in the narrow biobed he’s been allotted, staring up at the ceiling. He can’t sleep, though not for lack of trying, and the ceiling is a better alternative than staring at Erik.

They’ve only been en route to Earth for five hours or so now. After the initial adrenaline rush of their narrow escape, Erik had passed out completely and Charles is still feeling the residual aftershocks of his terror, afraid that Erik was on the brink of death from bloodloss. Moira hadn’t panicked, merely leveling off their trajectory and speed, getting them on a more practical course, and ordered Logan and Wade to get Erik to the medbay.

Raven had helped Charles along, leaving Irene long enough to walk him to the medbay, and Charles had watched intently as Logan himself bandaged Erik up, broad hands quick and efficient. Tactfully, Raven had dragged Wade back out of the medbay to give them all a little peace and quiet, and only once Logan finished tying off the bandages on Erik’s leg did Charles allow himself to collapse back into his own biobed, exhausted and head still ringing with the death throes of Shaw’s mind.

He can still feel it now, like cold fingers wrapped around his brain and digging in, clenched around delicate tissue and grey matter like a vise. He’s relived every last second of Shaw’s death over and over again in excruciating detail for the past five hours in an unending loop, unable to shake the sensation of falling, of being dragged down into the void with Shaw’s dying mind.

Between that and worry over Erik’s condition, it’s no small wonder Charles hasn’t been able to sleep a wink despite the heavy exhaustion weighing down on him. It’s a miracle he’s been able to lie still at all.

Before Logan left the medbay earlier he’d put the stones on the tiny stand beside Charles’ biobed, within easy reach. Perhaps he’d thought Charles would be comforted by their presence, or reassured by having them within his sight. Charles can’t even look at them. He hates them, with a passion that would surprise him if he didn’t also currently feel drained, even his emotions seeming far away and distant. Dulled, as if all his processing powers have been burnt out, oddly, by the icy grip of death. But he knows he hates the stones, and everything they’ve caused and all that they stand for, even though they’re the galaxy’s last hope against the Dark Planet.

Without realizing it, Charles’ hands have moved to grip either side of his biobed tightly, squeezing until his fingers are white and bloodless. His heart feels sick, with death and sorrow. The only comfort he has left is it all may very well be over soon, as he’ll finally be carrying out his one true task in only a few short hours.

Charles lets out a slow, shuddering breath, gradually loosening his grip with each passing second on his exhale. His telepathy remains tightly coiled in his head, tucked away deep inside himself where it won’t accidentally touch anyone else onboard the ship. He doesn’t think he could bear the weight of anyone else’s thoughts now, anyway; he’s far too consumed by his own.

Despite his better judgement, Charles turns and cranes his neck and looks steadily up at the stones as if he could make them combust just by sheer force of willpower. No dice, however. They simply lie there innocently, blissfully unaware of all the trauma that has surrounded them. Charles lets out a humourless snort. Now he’s giving feelings to rocks. Maybe his head is more damaged than he’d thought.

He scrubs a hand over his face and turns almost violently his back to look at the ceiling again, sending a twinge of discomfort up his spine and into his skull. Luckily the painkillers Logan had given him earlier seem to still be working. They must have been very strong to have even dimmed his migraine this much. Closing his eyes tightly, he lets in a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then lets it out on a steady, soundless whisper, all the tension in his muscles draining from him until he’s limp on the bed, his palms turned up at his sides to face the ceiling and legs flopping slightly open. _Calm_ , he tells himself, as if saying the word will make him feel it.

But somehow, after an amount of time he can’t determine, Charles does begin to relax a little despite himself. He’s tired—unbearably so—and finally his body is beginning to wrestle his mind into submission. As he relaxes his head tips gently to the side, away from the stones towards Erik. Drowsily, and half-involuntarily, he lets his eyes flutter open, just making sure Erik is still there. He didn’t expect Erik to be already staring steadily at him. He jerks in surprise and the frown creasing Erik’s brow deepens.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says, his voice scratchy with sleep and pain.

Charles swallows, trying not to remember why that is. “It’s fine,” he says. He pauses, chewing his lip. “How’s your leg?” he asks.

Erik shrugs the shoulder not resting against the biobed. “A little sore,” he replies. “But better. What about your head?”

A humorless smile twitches the corners of Charles’ mouth. “Same.”

Erik shifts, looking uncomfortable and unsure. “Are you okay?” he asks at last.

Charles sighs, feeling like he’s suddenly swallowed a stone again. Tears prick behind his eyes and he blinks rapidly, trying to dispel them with little success, but at least none have spilled over yet. He clenches and unclenches his fists, once, twice, trying to get up his courage and still refusing to look up and meet Erik’s gaze.

“Not really,” he mutters.

There’s a pause that Charles endures with bated breath, dreading what Erik might say next because no matter what it is, Charles isn’t sure he can hear it without losing himself entirely. But Erik doesn’t say anything. A moment passes and then Charles hears him shifting again, movement catching his eye as well, and he looks up finally to see Erik struggling to sit, one leg dangling over the edge of the bed.

“What are you doing?” he asks, sitting up himself and frowning across at Erik.

Erik pauses. “Do you not want me to come over there?”

“I… Well, no, not if you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Then you come over here,” Erik says. He starts stretching back out again, scooting to the edge of the mattress until his back is touching the wall, leaving plenty of space for Charles, who is still hesitating, biting his lip.

He stands slowly, partly from the small wave of vertigo that hits him as soon as he starts moving and partly because he still isn’t sure what he’s doing is right. It’s selfish, he knows that much. _He’s_ the reason Erik is in his current state. If Charles hadn’t let him stay, he never would have gotten shot. But then again, Charles knew he could never have made himself control Erik’s mind the way he had _twice_. Such a thing is almost unforgivable. He wonders why Erik seems to ready to forgive him now. He takes a halting step forward and halves the distance between them, so small is the medbay. Erik scoots back a little farther, letting his arm flop down like a pillow. Charles takes another step, then braces his knee on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says quietly.

“How would you hurt me?” Erik asks, reaching up so his fingers brush Charles’ ribs. “I’m all fixed up. I hardly even feel it.”

“I don’t know,” Charles says, leaning into the touch and falling further onto the bed despite himself. “But I don’t want to.”

“You won’t,” Erik replies.

Before Charles can protest any more, Erik’s hand slides around his back and pulls gently, just the last bit of encouragement Charles needs, and he gives in, sliding up onto the mattress and into Erik’s arms, his own wrapping tightly around Erik’s neck. He burrows into the warm skin of Erik’s throat, cheek rubbing up against the soft fabric of the t-shirt Logan had changed him into while he was passed out. The arms around his waist tighten, and he snuggles in closer, though it makes it difficult to breathe, and the movement jostles one of his legs in between Erik’s. He hears and feels the sharp intake of breath that accompanies it.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling back a little so the word is audible. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Erik says, though there’s still an edge to his voice that says otherwise. “Just try not to do that again?”

Charles nods. “Sorry,” he says again as he settles back in.

One of his hands begins making a path up and down the ridge of Erik’s bicep, soft and slow, almost without Charles realizing he’s doing it, but it calms the both of them, mesmerized by the movement. Charles doesn’t fall asleep, but he’s not quite awake either when, an indeterminate amount of time later, Erik speaks again.

“Promise you won’t try and be a martyr again, Charles.”

“What?”

Erik shifts, pulling back so he can look Charles in the eye, his gaze surprisingly stern. “What you did at the concert. Running off into the middle of a battlefield to, what, protect us?”

Charles swallows, jaw clenching. “I didn’t know there would be danger, Erik,” he replies steadily. “More immediate danger than there was, at least.”

“But you left us.” _Me_ . Charles hears, involuntarily. _Me. You left_ **_me_ **.

The thought is like a sobering slap to the face. The worst thing is that it’s true; he had every intention of leaving his friends behind—leaving Erik behind. Where Erik’s wrong is in thinking that the choice had been easy. It hadn’t. It had been one of the hardest of his life, but one he was prepared to make for all their best interests.

“I thought…” he begins, but he stops himself and thinks for a moment before starting again. “We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. In all likelihood, it may not be something—” Erik opens his mouth to interrupt, and Charles shakes his head fervently. “No, Erik, it’s true. This may not have a happy ending. _I_ may not. But you can. You _should_ , Erik. You should. Raven and Irene should, and Wade. Logan and I have thrown in our lot, but you don’t have to.”

“You didn’t, though,” Erik says vehemently. “You were born into this, you didn’t choose it.”

“I didn’t,” Charles agrees. “But it’s my burden anyway, one I’m happy to bear so no one else has to.”

Erik makes a frustrated, strangled noise in the back of his throat. “This is exactly what I’m talking about, Charles,” he says, the hand resting on Charles’ hip curling into a fist. “You’re determined to do what’s best for everyone else when you haven’t considered maybe you _don’t_ know what’s best! I may not be some ineffable cosmic being, but I have the right to make my own choices, Charles.”

Charles chokes out a laugh. “You want to die?”

“No,” Erik says firmly. “You do?”

Charles pauses, breath caught in his throat, mouth open though he has no idea how to reply now that the question is so bluntly out in the open. Leave it to Erik to make things seem so simple, so black and white. He feels his eyes begin to prickle again and blinks, though even that is difficult. He can’t seem to break his gaze away from Erik’s, tied there by the anger and the pain warring just behind his eyes. No matter what he does, no matter how much he tries to help, he’s only hurt Erik, and Erik is the one thing in this whole universe he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt he never wants to hurt again.

“No,” he says. “I don’t.”

“Good,” Erik grunts. “Then stop acting like it.”

“ _Acting_ like it?” Charles can’t help the small laugh of sheer disbelief that bubbles up out of him. “I’m not acting like I want to die, I’m only trying to be realistic.”

“I swore to help you in any way I could,” Erik answers. His voice has gone tight, but he doesn’t look away from Charles. “And when it came down to it, you pushed me—pushed us _all_ —away. You could’ve been killed.”

“I think I made it very clear I can take care of myself back in Irene’s room,” Charles answers stiffly.

“You could have been killed,” Erik repeats, “and then what would we do? You’re our only shot against the Dark Planet, Charles. You might have your big grand destiny to fulfill, but all the rest of us are riding on the outcome. I know you hate that this is your duty, and you should. It isn’t fair. I know you’re prepared to go through with it anyway, but don’t throw us all away in the process.” To Charles’ surprise, Erik gives a faint smile, though it’s a thin, painful thing. “At risk of sounding pathetic, I thought we had something, you and I.”

“You’re not pathetic,” Charles whispers, heart caught in his throat.

“Then don’t push me away again,” Erik says simply. “You’re right, we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.” He gives a sliver of a smile again, this time wry. “But I think I’ve made it very clear I’m here for you no matter what the outcome is.”

“And if I die tomorrow?” Charles says, keeping his voice as level and steady as he can. It’s the thing he’s been agonizing over the most, why he originally decided he should put distance between himself and Erik early on—and look where it’s gotten him, he realizes: he’s right back in Erik’s arms, where he wants to be. “ _I don’t want to hurt you_ , Erik.”

“And if you don’t?” Erik returns stubbornly.

“But what if I _do_?”

“Then I will mourn you,” Erik answers him solemnly, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Charles’, reducing the space between them down to nothing. Erik takes up Charles’ entire vision, just as he seems to take up Charles’ entire world. “But I would much rather be able to look back and remember that I made the choice to stand by you and get to know you. I’d be far more upset if all I had to remember about you was being pushed away.”

“I get it,” Charles mumbles, “no more pushing you away.”

Erik lets out a short laugh. “Glad it’s sinking in.”

“It’s your choice,” Charles says slowly. “I understand. I’m not…” He knocks his head against Erik’s gently, smiling ruefully. “I’m not used to having much of a choice. I’m sorry I didn’t allow you one either.”

“And now you’re making _me_ feel guilty,” Erik groans, but there’s a tenderness to his thoughts, tentative, as if despite his strong assertion to stand by Charles he’s not sure Charles actually wants him there.

Charles slides into his mind, gentle and making sure Erik registers his presence and feels him there. He opens his mind to Erik, showing every thought and feeling he’s had about him ever since Charles first laid eyes on him. He’s loved Erik ever since Erik agreed to help him, visibly swallowing his wariness and confusion, helping hide Charles from the police and believing Charles’ story, however at first dubiously. Charles has spent most of his life as more of an object than a person, a totem lifted up and revered as a god, distant and aloof, but the time he’s spent with Erik—and Raven, and Logan, and Moira, but mostly with Erik—has filled his heart near to bursting.

He’s not sure who starts the kiss. Maybe he surges forward, or maybe it’s Erik who closes the rest of the distance between them. All Charles knows is the taste of Erik, the feel of Erik’s lips against his, allowing his eyes to flutter shut and wrapping himself in Erik’s fierce, quiet joy and deep relief. His grip on Charles has tightened, just enough for Charles to feel his strength, and Charles shivers, kissing Erik back as their thoughts and emotions swirl between them like an eddy beneath the tide.

 _Thank you_ , Erik thinks, not so much in words, but the sentiment is there, loud and clear in the language of his mind, which Charles speaks best. _Thank you._

 _No_ , Charles answers gently, because now he understands. Even if he does have to pay with his life tomorrow in order to do his duty, there’s something in not facing that end alone. It will matter, to have Erik. _Thank_ **_you._ **

 

*

 

Ten hours later, Earth looms into view through the front viewscreen. Charles feels his breath hitch as he stares, seated beside Wade along the back wall of the cockpit. For all the time he’s spent thinking about it, seen pictures, and actually been on its surface, he’s never seen Earth the _planet_ before as a whole. He wasn’t conscious—was barely alive—when they’d first flown him in, and of course he couldn’t see it when they were flying away just yesterday.

It’s a sight to behold now. True, it’s not as big and gaudy as a gas giant. It has no asteroid belt and only one moon. But the shine of it—the bright blue and deep greens and browns glazed over with sprinklings of white cloud—is somehow more mesmerizing than anything else he’s seen. When he was a child, still moving from place to place, Charles saw planets covered entirely in ice, planets glaring bright orange from continually burning natural fire pits, planets purple as the inside of a geode, and they were all beautiful. But Earth…

Something starts under his skin as he looks at it. Not adrenaline—he definitely knows what that feels like after these past few days if he didn’t before—but some creeping, warm, calming thing that starts at his core and begins to slide slowly through to the rest of him. _Home_ , he thinks suddenly, and he realizes that for the first time he might actually recognize that word for what it means. He smiles softly, eyes flickering from Earth to the back of Erik’s chair automatically, even though he knows Erik won’t be able to look back, and sends a pulse of affection Erik’s way.

“Mama mia, that’s a spicy meat-a ball!” Wade whoops from where he’s strapped in next to Charles. An elbow nearly collides with the side of Charles’ head as Wade pumps his fist in the air, and he jerks to avoid it. “Look at that beauty! We did it, you guys. We’re back!”

Moira sighs exasperatedly, not looking up from where she’s typing something into her holoscreen. “Don’t celebrate yet,” she says thinly. “We still need to be cleared for landing in Cairo. The last thing want is more people shooting at us.”

“Totally agreed,” Wade says, sitting back in his seat, hands folded behind his head. “But small victories should be celebrated. When this is all finished I’m going to set us up on a booze cruise around the Osiris galaxy, all expenses paid. Got a friend who says you can ride space manatees there.” He turns and wiggles his eyebrows enthusiastically at Charles, who can’t think of anything to do except smile back in what he hopes is a reassuring manner.

When he looks forward again, he sees they’re much closer now. A satellite flashes by the window in a blink,  and then Earth—or rather a portion of it—is taking up the entire window as they zero in on a location near the equator. The pyramid they need to get to is in Egypt, and Egypt is in the northern part of the continent Africa, which is different than the continent Charles was on last time he was on Earth, but that’s about all he knows from the instructions passed down through Element legend and Oyemai Earth geography lessons. Looking at the world now, he wonders how previous Elements could have ever hoped to find the pyramid all by themselves.

“Message from Cairo IG Control,” Moira says. “We’re cleared for entry.”

“Roger that,” Erik answers, clicking a few more buttons on his screen, then grabbing the throttle. “Hold on tight.”

Charles barely has time to curl his fingers into the belts restraining him before the engine kicks into a higher gear and they pelt downwards towards the surface of the planet. The ship begins to vibrate as they break through into the atmosphere, and he has to clamp down on his teeth to keep them from chattering. But as the world opens up below, he finds himself in awe again, rather than afraid. Discomfort washes over him from the other side of the cockpit—Irene is apparently not a happy flier—but Charles shores up his shields on that front and instead concentrates on Erik, whose mind is burning bright as ever. This is one of Erik’s favorite moments, when the whole ship feels like it might rattle apart, but only he can feel the heart of Magneto pounding away in the center, keeping them safe, guiding them home.

 _Enjoying yourself?_ Erik asks. Charles can see the wide grin he’s sporting in his mind.

 _For the moment_ , he says, smiling back. _Mind on the road, pilot_.

Erik gives him the mental equivalent of an eyeroll, but from the way his thoughts slide back to the readouts on the screen and Moira’s movements, it’s clear he’s focusing again. Charles’ smile widens and he pulls back from Erik’s mind just so he’s brushing the very very surface, riding the high of Erik’s contentment. It’s so much better like this, he realizes, and suddenly he’s overwhelmingly thankful that Erik decided to fight so hard to show him.

Below them, the landscape stretches out like a painting; green and sandy yellow and dark chrome for cities, and through it all a strip of blue that is the Nile. As they swing around to face the other side of Cairo, Charles thinks he can see what looks like mountains looming in the distance. They’re almost there.

 

*

 

With the Magneto undergoing engine checks and refueling back in the hanger on the outskirts of the city, the seven of them actually are on their way towards the desert in record time. They’re all packed dangerously into the back of a four-seater taxi except Wade, who Logan had pushed into the front seat and who is now holding up a steady stream of conversation with the driver in Arabic. As for the rest of them, Moira, Raven, and Erik are squashed into the seats while Logan, Irene, and Charles perch on their laps, a map Logan had produced out of nowhere spread out across their knees.

Raven’s elbow digs into Erik’s side as she holds Irene’s waist, and Charles’ butt is surprisingly bony against Erik’s thighs, but as Logan scans the map, humming, and Charles soothes his hand unconsciously up and down the arm Erik has wrapped around his middle, Erik finds himself relaxing. He’s not the only one, either. Now that they’re on the ground on Earth again, the atmosphere is much less jittery, more focused, excited even. This is a good thing considering they have no idea what will happen when they do the ritual. Better to go into it without the nerves and _with_ the confidence that they’ll get through it. At the thought, he tightens his grip around Charles and gets a mental caress in response.

“So, which one are we looking for?” Raven asks, craning her neck from around Irene’s shoulder.

“It’s not with the other pyramids,” Logan says. “Not with the main three. It’s towards the south. A pyramid with a secret room, not marked anywhere but on the Priesthood’s blueprints.”

“Can you know for sure that it’s still standing?” Moira asks skeptically. “You said there’s 5,000 years between each of these…. Dark Planet incidents. What if the room’s been discovered or the pyramid is too ruined?”

Logan shakes his head. “It won’t be. The Priesthood owns the pyramid. We know it’s safe.”

Erik frowns. “What?”

Logan sighs, looking up from the map finally to look at them all straight in the face, speaking slowly as if he’s addressing a group of kindergarteners. “The Priesthood owns the pyramid. When Egyptian tombs started to get more foreign attention, a member of the Priesthood from the University in Cairo bought the pyramid so it wouldn’t be tampered with. They used to host digs on the site, but the secret room’s still safe and the pyramid is still intact, thanks to his intervention.” He looks down again, pointing to a spot on the map. “Got it. Right there.”

He knocks on the window separating the cab from the back seat and both the driver and Wade turn their heads, still laughing at some shared joke. “¿Qué pasa, señor?” Wade asks brightly.

In response, Logan merely holds up the map, his finger still glued to a spot to the lower left side. The driver nods and says something in Arabic, waving his hand. Wade gives a thumbs up and a wide grin to the rest of them crammed in the back.

“Onward!” he says, pointing down the road. Then he and the driver lapse back into their conversation without any further ado.

Logan scoots back awkwardly on Moira’s lap in order to get the arm space to fold up the map, Moira keeping her arms pointedly crossed over her seat belt. With nothing else to look at, Charles, on the other hand, settles back quite comfortably, back pressed to Erik’s chest, a mirror of how they fell asleep together in the medbay. Erik cranes his neck around to look at Charles and sees a twitching smile at the corner of his lips as he watches Logan struggle to put the map back in the correct fold of his seemingly infinite robe. When he sees Erik watching, he doesn’t hold the grin back any longer, and Erik can’t help but return it.

“Okay, so finding it isn’t apparently an issue,” Raven says. From her tone it’s evident she too is trying not to smile. “But what about the ritual itself once we get there? We have the stones,” and Irene pats the satchel resting on her lap that contains them as if in reassurance, “we have Charles, of course. But what do we have to do with them?”

“Wind blows,” Charles says. “Fire burns, rain falls.”

Erik frowns, confused. “What?”

“Wind blows, fire burns, rain falls,” Charles states again like it’s the plainest thing in the world. He turns and gives Erik a disbelieving look, and when he sees Erik’s own perplexed expression, his gaze shifts around to everyone else, settling on Logan. “Surely _you_ at least have heard that. It’s the oldest proverb in Element history.”

Logan shakes his head. “Nothing about that in the Priesthood books,” he says. “All they say is the stones have to be unlocked by the Elements. The Elements hold the final key. It’s another safety precaution for them.”

“Well, what Charles said must be the key then,” Moira replies. “Wind blows, fire burns, rain falls.”

“What does it mean though?” Raven says.

“Here, take the stones,” Irene says, feeling for the zip in the bag holding them secure and undoing it, pulling out the stones one by one. “They each have markings on them, I can feel. That must mean something.”

Raven takes the first stone from Irene, the one with three horizontal waved lines at its base and passes it down to Moira. Charles, Erik notes, shies away from the stone as it passes in front of him, and when Raven passes down the others—one with four straight lines at the base to Logan, and one with four curved lines at the top to Erik—Charles avoids those as well. Erik holds his in his left hand, close to Moira and Logan’s so they can compare them.

“These are the markings for the elements,” Logan grunts. “Mine is earth. Moira, yours is water. Erik has air.”

“So this must be fire,” Raven says somewhat breathlessly.

“And the way you unlock them is with Charles’ proverb,” Moira says at once. “Rain falls. Water... falls. Maybe we need to drop it in water?”

“Or drop water on it,” Erik says. “Water for water. Earth for earth. Fire for fire. Why doesn’t mine just automatically open? It’s in the air all the time.”

“Maybe you need to blow on it,” Moira suggests. “A concentration of air.”

Carefully, half so Charles can move out of the way and half because he’s actually wary of doing so, Erik brings the stone to his face. He can feel the eyes of everyone else in the backseat boring into him, the anticipation mounting in the air. Even the noise of the busy Cairo highway fades away to nothing as he stares down the instrument in front of him, eyes running over the deep lines in the blue-grey stone that’s cold as death. He bites his lip, worrying it for a moment, sparing a fraction of a second to wonder if this will even work. Then, abruptly, he gathers himself. Charles is counting on him. Everyone is counting on him. Doubts be damned. He takes in a sharp breath and blows the air back out in a rushing jet over the face of the stone.

As soon as the air touches it, the stone changes. A bright yellowish light begins to pulse inside of it and the surface, originally so cold, warms so it’s almost hot. But almost as soon as it starts, the color fades and the heat dissipates.

“What’s the matter?” Irene asks.

Charles turns to her, giving her an apologetic look that if she can’t see, she can at least hear in his voice. “Erik blew on it,” he says. “It glowed for a moment, but it’s out again.”

“That must be good, though,” Moira says. “We’re doing something right at least.”

“Yes,” Logan grunts. “The ritual is very precise. It probably didn’t work because we aren’t in the right formation. Or the right place. Which is a good thing. Imagine if we unleashed all that power right now.”

Charles turns and gives Erik a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Better put them back for now,” he says. “We know what to do with them. No point staring at them while we wait.”

“By the way,” Moira says darkly, “what time is it?”

Logan peers into the front seat of the cab. “Nearly two,” he says. “Even if we run into trouble we have three hours. We’ll make it.”

Nodding, Charles settles back against Erik’s chest as soon as he hands the stone back over to Irene. A silence falls over them, then, and stays for the rest of the ride as the pyramids begin to loom up against the backdrop of downtown Cairo. They pass them, trundling along the aerial roadway, lowering slowly but surely to the ground as they pass the majority of traffic which has turned off towards the three great pyramids. Even Wade and the driver have fallen silent, looking out the window for any sign of their turnoff.

It isn’t long before they see it. There’s no roadway, only a dirt path worn by hover mechanisms that have pushed the sand off to either side to create a rut that runs from the main road to the small tomb in the distance. No cars follow them, though Erik hadn’t expected any to; it’s just by force of habit that he checks to begin with, and the hush in the car continues as they draw nearer to their destination. About halfway up the road there’s a security gate manned by a bot. It doesn’t look ready to let them in when they pull up, so instead, they get out of the cab, Erik standing close to Charles’ side as Moira pays the driver and Logan heads toward the gate to talk to the bot.

In the still pervasive silence, Erik takes the opportunity to shoot Charles another sidelong look. He’s biting his lip as he stares intently at the pyramid, sizing it up. His eyes flicker to the sky for a moment with a look of concentration that Erik takes to symbolize some mental math. With a short, abrupt breath through his nose, Charles looks back and towards the bot, tugging at the sleeves of his borrowed uniform so they fall from where he’s bunched them up around his wrists down almost to the tip of his fingers.

Even if he weren’t obviously fidgeting - worrying the sleeves, scuffing at the sand with his boot toe - Erik would know just how nervous Charles is. The tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there from the time they woke up curled together on the tiny medbay bed to just before they got out of the cab has returned, setting his spine ramrod straight as he stares ahead, a frown starting to form on his brow. The touch of his mind, too, which had so been casually and comfortingly brushing against Erik’s the whole afternoon, is gone, to be replaced with surprisingly cold silence. Erik’s never before thought his own thoughts to be lonely, and this new sensation isn’t a fun one.

He raises his hand in a jerky movement to touch Charles’ arm, but a second later, he stops himself, somehow feeling that wouldn’t be the proper way to break Charles out of his revere. Instead, he clears his throat quietly, but pointedly. Charles snaps visibly back to reality, blinking quickly as he turns to look at Erik, releasing his lip and giving Erik a questioning look.

“Everything all right?” Erik says lowly so the others standing nearby won’t hear.

Charles nods determinedly, eyes flickering to the pyramid for a second and then back to Erik. “Yes,” he responds.

Though the words are confident, the emotion doesn’t spread to his expression. Erik’s stomach gives another unhappy flop that Charles is still doubting this even now, but he knows better than to start an argument at this stage. Let the ritual play out with Erik by his side, and Charles will remember to have confidence in them all. Erik is sure of it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Erik sees Logan turn back around as the security gate begins to rise, waving a hand to beckon them all forward. Erik gives Charles what he hopes is a reassuring if thin smile and brushes his hand across the small of Charles’ back as he starts forward to step onto the pyramid’s grounds. He expects Charles to drop the subject as well—after all, they both have bigger things to worry about at this point—which is why he’s surprised when he hears Charles jogging to catch up with him, and a second later looks over to see Charles, still frowning, at his side.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Charles says quietly.

Erik pauses, feeling himself beginning to frown now, too. “How so?” he asks.

“I’m not sure,” Charles replies. “It’s just… off. Something about the pyramid.”

“Maybe it’s some sort of genetic memory,” Erik suggests. “Drawing you to it. An Elemental thing.”

Charles shrugs a shoulder. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”

But as they make their way down the track towards the pyramid entrance, the faintest hints of uneasiness remain etched around the corners of his eyes and mouth. Even when they’re inside and Logan is directing them down the hallway lit with a string of fluorescent lamps toward the area with the secret room, Charles remains uneasy at Erik’s side, though the rest of the group stares around in awe at the space.

“Wow,” Raven breathes. “You know, you spend years saving up for a big trip to the Qu’oa Galaxy or something, thinking their eternal sunset is going to be the most amazing thing you’ll ever see in your life. You forget what we have here, with all that’s out there.”

“I wouldn’t trade this sight for a thousand nights on Qu’oa,” Wade says, wiping at his eyes which are—inexplicably to Erik—wet. “Soon as I get back home I’m building myself a pyramid. Fuck penthouses.”

“It’s amazing,” Moira agrees.

“Makes you glad we’re part of saving it,” Raven says. She gives Charles a wide, warm smile, which Charles does his best to return. Raven at least must find it convincing even though Erik doesn’t, because she turns to Irene and resumes describing some of the paintings on the walls.

Now that Charles has mentioned it, though, and with Charles still on edge beside him the further they get into the pyramid, Erik is starting to feel that something isn’t right here, either. They’d come to an agreement back on the Magneto that Charles was not going to run from them anymore, not going to doubt himself while he has Erik and all the others with him, was going to believe that he has a fighting chance, especially now that they’re here and beating the Dark Planet by several hours. Charles had made peace with the situation, Erik could physically feel it in his head when he did. So the fact that Charles has returned to his jumpy, agitated state has Erik double-checking his surroundings, too, and when he does, he starts to get nervous.

For one thing, the lights were on when they got here. Maybe they’re on a timer, it’s true. Or maybe someone at the university is here, but there’s no car to back up that theory. Maybe they got dropped off. Erik looks down. There’s tracks in the sandy dirt floor—big ones—that look fresh. They turn down another corridor, following Logan out into an open anteroom. The footsteps turn off, too.

“Hey, Logan,” Erik says, trying to sound nonchalant. “How often is this place visited?”

“Once every couple weeks, I think,” Logan says. “There was a dig going on nearby last year, sponsored by the university with a Priest supervising. Like I said, they like to keep an eye on things. Here.” He leads them all over to a wall and pauses, searching in the folds of his robe for something, and after a second pulls out a small, four-pronged key, with a feral grin. “There we go.”

Charles turns and gives Erik and encouraging smile, whatever reservations he’d had apparently forgotten, and Charles’ relief makes Erik relax a little bit too. Logan slots the key into a section of the wall and turns it. All of the sudden there’s the sound of the grinding of ancient gears, stone or else Erik would feel them as he spools out his powers, checking for any sorts of booby traps waiting beyond. There’s nothing there, only an empty, dank corridor beyond, half-visible with the light from a skylight, but just before he reels his powers back in, Erik feels something behind them.

Something tall, and sturdy and most certainly not there before.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter and epilogue to be posted next Tuesday and Wednesday! Thanks to everyone who's been reading, commenting, and kudos-ing. We really appreciate it. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being a day late! And since it's my last turn posting a chapter, I'd just like to publicly thank **madneto** for inviting me to collab with her on this fic, as well as for her endless patience with me! :')

 

Erik starts to whip around, but before he’s even halfway turned, Logan is facing the wall behind the group, claws flashing out from between his knuckles, a roar escaping his throat as he leaps. Erik spins the rest of the way around just in time to see Logan catch the fist of a man standing at least seven feet tall with shoulders almost as broad as he is high, muscled arm and punishing knuckles aimed straight at Charles’ back. Logan catches his fist, sending it crashing into the wall, and the intruder yells in frustration while Logan lets out a grunt of pain.

“Holy shit!” Raven and Wade shout at the same time.

But Erik barely registers them, reaching for Charles and pulling him back behind him, then tugging his phaser free as Wade runs forward and joins the fray. Moira’s already shooting at the behemoth with her own phaser, but the fire just seems to be glancing off the man’s protective red armor. It’s military grade, a kind Erik has seen for the army’s foot soldiers. Erik snarls in frustration.

“Stop!” Logan growls, dodging another punch. Wade catches the arm and goes flying into a wall when the giant shakes him off, shouting. “We’re friends! Priests! Escobar! Assinen! From the Order!”

“He knows,” another voice replies from the doorway.

Erik turns and sees another man, this one of about Charles’ height, wearing the same kind of armor as the giant. Before Erik can react any further, however, the man raises a hand revealing his own phaser, and shoots a bolt of red energy at Logan. Charles shouts as Logan crumples to the ground with a cry, grabbing Erik’s shoulder and pulling him back. The touch jumpstarts something in Erik, and he begins to stagger backwards toward the newly opened corridor in a desperate bid for cover.

“Raven, Wade, take Irene and Charles and go!” he shouts. Wade rises from the floor shaking his head partly in disagreement and probably, too, to shake off the dizziness from hitting the wall. “Go!” Erik urges.

Then he turns his attention to the newcomer, not even looking to make sure his order is being followed. He and Moira are too busy mounting a fresh assault on the man with the phaser. Their combined efforts have the man ducking for his own cover, but a second later, Erik feels a hand on his shoulder again and turns to see, to his utmost frustration, Charles.

“Charles, _go_!” he shouts.

Charles shakes his head. “I can help!” he says.

Erik opens his mouth to reply, but suddenly Charles pushes him to the ground, grabbing a hand to tug Moira down as well so the both of them narrowly avoid the giant’s fist that goes swinging into the space where their heads used to be, and the wind is knocked out of him in a grunt instead.

“Cain!” the man shouts from the doorway. “For god’s sake, don’t kill the Element! We still need him alive.”

The giant—Cain—lets out a frustrated groan and makes another grab for Charles as if to tug him away. Erik gets there first, taking Charles’ arm, pulling him close and curling around him for cover while shooting at Cain’s hand, one of the only non-armored parts of him. Cain reels back, letting out a pained, angry yell, cradling his hand.

“Marko?” It’s Logan, miraculously on his feet again. The singed area of his robes around the phaser burn is still smoking. He’s staring down the man in the entryway, shaking his head. “I knew I smelled a rat.”

Erik’s stomach sinks. Logan never mentioned anyone asking about the ritual. Then again, he probably didn’t find it very relevant. After all, who in their right mind would actively work against the survival of the entire universe?

_I can’t get through to their minds_ , Charles says in his mind, pushing himself out of Erik’s hold, his fingers pressed tight to his temple. _Those helmets, they make them like a blank space. That’s what I felt before. Take them off._

Nodding, Erik shifts, sending Moira a pointed look. “Cover me,” he breathes.

Moira nods, sending a hail of blasts toward Marko, keeping him from firing back on Logan who’s still without cover. With invisible fingers, Erik reaches for the wires in the string of fluorescents lining the hallway behind Marko, lifting them off the wall and sending them towards his turned back in a tight coil.

“I should have known you were involved when things went sour,” Logan growls. “I should have stopped you when you came asking questions!”

Then suddenly he’s sprinting across the space toward the doorway. Moira yells, forced to suddenly abort her own phaser fire to avoid hitting Logan, turning instead to Cain. Good thing, too, since Cain seems to have recovered from his wounded hand and is thundering after Logan, each footfall shaking the pyramid so dust begins to filter down from the ceiling.

“You’re making a mistake,” Marko warns, shooting lazily at Logan, making him twist and slide to avoid the bolts of phaser fire. “You said yourself when I came asking, the Elements are all but dead. You don’t stand a chance. Smart people, like me, like Shaw, understand a once-in-a-lifetime deal when it comes our way.”

“Shaw’s dead!” Charles shouts, still flat on his stomach on the floor to avoid being shot at.

It’s exactly the distraction Logan needs. Marko whips toward the sound, turning his phaser towards them, but not in time. With a shout, Logan closes the distance between them and reels his fist back, sending it slashing down through the air, cutting clean through the phaser’s plastic barrel.

“Oh, bub, you’re lucky I’ve taken a vow of peace!” Logan yells, and the blades of the hand that hadn’t cut through the barrel retract so instead of slicing through Marko’s head, he punches him hard across the cheekbone.

Marko groans, but recovers quickly enough to send his own fist flying into Logan’s middle, doubling him over with a grunt. Erik sees his moment and seizes it. With Logan out of the way, he brings the lights to wrap around Marko; his arms first, and then several times in quick succession around his middle and legs. Suddenly caught, Marko shouts in frustration, wriggling wildly against his bonds. Not effectively enough, though, and Erik brings a loop of wire up to wrap around the helmet resting on Marko’s head, throwing it away in an instant.

“Now, Charles!” he shouts.

It’s unnecessary. Barely a second passes between the helmet flying off down the corridor and Marko’s body going rigid, then suddenly crumpling to the ground. Logan looks up, disbelieving, then back over at Charles, eyes wide. Cain looks, too. Then he lets out a cry of his own.

“You killed my father!” he roars, before barrelling quickly towards them.

“No!” Charles shouts back, struggling to his feet, holding out his hands as if that will stop Cain.

Cain doesn’t hear him. Moira and Erik instantly begin to rain down fire on the giant as he thunders toward them, but it glances off him and his helmet and doesn’t seem to even irk him, mindlessly focused as he is on Charles. Erik leaps up as well, jumping in front of Charles, aiming at the narrow space of the eyeholes in Cain’s helmet. That slows him down just in time; only a handful of yards away from Charles he skids to a stop, hands coming up to protect his face as he roars. Charles jumps out of the way toward the protection of Logan, who’s now running back toward the commotion.

“The helmet,” Charles says as they reach each other. Logan nods and picks up speed, apparently readying himself to take a running leap at Cain.

“For the love of Christ, Logan, stop running into phaser fire!” Moira shouts.

The hail of blasts they’re raining down on Cain is ceaseless—otherwise he’d certainly find an opening to take a punch at them or worse, at Charles—but Logan doesn’t seem to heed Moira’s words. Instead, he crouches down, ready to jump, and Erik, knowing his legs are far too short to let him leap that distance, drops his phaser to raise his hand, picking up the metal in Logan’s skeleton and lifting him to land precisely on Cain’s shoulders. Cain roars again, swiping wildly at the interloper on his back, but Logan’s too sturdy. Dodging Cain’s flailing limbs, Logan’s fingers slide underneath the rim of the helmet and toss it back across the room.

Across the room, Charles lets out a sharp noise of exertion, and then Cain’s windmilling arms pause, his face going suddenly slack from its look of rage. He stumbles forward, Logan sliding from his back, and slumps against the wall, sliding to the dirt floor with a grunt. Scarcely has he hit the ground before Erik is holstering his phaser, running full tilt at Charles who looks ready to join Cain and Marko on the floor, pale as porcelain.

“Charles,” Erik says, catching him by the shoulders before he can slump any further.

“Oh god,” Charles sighs. He twists away from Erik and dry heaves a few times to the side over Erik’s arm when Erik refuses to let him go. He trembles for a moment, Erik watching with mounting nerves wriggling like snakes in his gut, before he straightens up, wiping a hand across his mouth. “Good thing we didn’t have breakfast. When this is over I’m going to need to sleep for about a month.”

“Your head?” Erik asks, brushing the lock of hair that’s fallen down over Charles’ left eye back up out of the way, trying to radiate quiet comfort if Charles needs it.

Charles winces, but turns into Erik’s touch all the same. “Migraines back. Can’t help that now, though,” he says. “Come on.”

He turns and takes a step towards the corridor, but as he does a jolt of pain passes visibly over his face. Quickly, and without fanfare, Erik wraps his arm under Charles’ shoulders and begins to jog back towards the secret room at a pace Charles is able to match without wincing. Moira and Logan, seeing Charles up and moving, seem to deem it acceptable to begin running themselves toward the room illuminated by the skylight and four colorful shafts of light—blue,yellow, and green—coming from the stones.

A good thing, too, because the second they come out of the hallway and cross the threshold, the light from the opening in the ceiling dims. Erik looks up, heart hammering, and sees a shadow, darker than any caused by a cloud, beginning to blot out the sun. He clenches his jaw, stomach sinking. The Dark Planet must have picked up speed. It’s eclipsing the sun. He has no idea how much time they have, now, but he’s guessing not much.

“Fuck,” Charles breathes beside him, and when Erik looks over, he sees he’s staring at the ceiling too.

“Don’t worry about that,” Erik urges. “We’re here.”

“Get Charles in the center,” Logan barks abruptly, pointing to a raised dais in the middle of the room, equidistant from the four tall pedestals that hold each of the stones. Then he runs over towards Raven, Irene, and Wade who are clustered around the fourth, dead stone.

With feverish haste, Erik half-drags Charles towards the platform, setting him down with as much care as the speed they need can offer. “We’re fine,” he says. The light from above dims still further and his stomach twists. “We’re going to be okay.”

Charles nods warily. Closing his eyes, he rubs his fingers against his temple, trying to relieve some of the tension. “Go help the others,” he says, voice ragged.

Not wanting to leave Charles’ side, but without any other productive option, Erik nods jerkily and bounds over to the group clustered around the final stone: fire. “What’s the problem?” he asks. “Why isn’t it on?”

“Erik, my man, we need fire!” Wade says, bouncing from foot to foot with apprehension, running a hand through his hair. “I have no fire, I-I-I have no matches! I just quit smoking, I mean if I had known—” He turns to Irene. “Diva, do you smoke?”

“Stop panicking!” Moira orders. “We need to think.”

They all pause, matching expressions of fear and anxiety on all their faces. Erik’s mind is whirling, trying to think of anything that might create a flame. Their phasers won’t—that’s concentrated energy, not actual fire. But then he freezes, remembering. The sparks that had come off the wall back at Fhloston Paradise when Logan attacked the D’Khantuun. Sparks from his claws. He rounds on Logan, eyes wide.

“Your claws,” he breathes. “They make sparks.”

Logan’s eyebrows raise. “Shit, kid,” he says.

Elbowing the rest of them quickly out of the way, Logan strides up to the stone sitting almost nonchalantly on the top of the pedestal. With bated breath, Erik and the others watch as Logan stares the stone down, raising his fists, blades sliding out between his knuckles with an audible _snickt_. He strikes them together hard, once, twice, the blood roaring in Erik’s ears as he watches, and then it happens. One tiny spark flares into life along the edge of one of the blades for just a fraction of a second. But it’s long enough.

As soon as the spark touches its surface, the stone flares into life, a bright red jet of light shooting out from the top, making them all stagger backwards out of the way. Then, with an odd humming noise, two more lights shoot out of the side, connecting it to the two stones on opposite sides, colored lights shooting out from the other stones, to create a square around Charles in the middle. Pulse still rushing in his ears, Erik ducks under the light and begins sprinting full-tilt towards the dais where Charles stands, eyes wide and disbelieving as he stares at the spectacle around him.

“Charles!” he calls, stumbling a little on the sand in his haste. He skids into the side of the dais, falling forward and catching himself on the rough hewn limestone. He looks up at Charles, eyes desperate. “It’s done. Do it.”

Charles’ eyes widen, and when Erik looks harder at him in the dim light he sees they’re wet. “I… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he breathes, terrified. “I thought I would just _do it_ , all the stories made it seem like—I don’t know—”

“Listen,” Erik cuts in. Feeling the cold sweat running down his spine, he clambers up onto the dais, taking Charles by the waist, pulling him close, looking straight into his eyes and making Charles look straight back at him. “Everything’s okay. Relax. I’ve got you.”

“But I don’t know what to do,” Charles answers, shaking his head insistently, raising his hands to Erik’s shoulders and gripping them tight. “It’s lost. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Why isn’t anything happening?” Raven calls from outside the square of light. She’s holding fast to Irene, whose face is buried in her neck.

“Give him a minute!” Erik snaps back, not breaking eye contact with Charles. He gives Charles a smile he hopes is more reassuring than it feels. “Just breathe,” he says. “It’ll come.”

Charles takes a shaky breath, but his gaze is more steady, determined. He’s trying. “I trust you,” he says quietly.

“Hey,” Erik murmurs, smile widening. “Tell me about the most beautiful planet you’ve ever seen.”

“Mmmm,” Charles hums. He bites his lip, smoothing a thumb over Erik’s collar bone. “There was a blue gas giant when I was young. We lived on a satellite station that orbited it, and every once in awhile you would see the storms on its face. The lightning.” He smiles softly, genuinely. “And there was a dwarf planet with yellow soil and orange oceans.”

Erik makes an exaggerated face. “Sounds garish,” he says.

Charles laughs, ducking his head. “No, it was beautiful,” he answers, his eyes shining again, although this time with happiness. “Much better than it sounds.”

“All right, I believe you,” Erik says in mock defeat. He cocks his head to catch Charles’ eye, rubbing a slow circle on his back. “Tell me about another one.”

“There’s so many, Erik,” Charles says.

“What’s the best of them all,” Erik urges. “The Oyemai planet?”

Charles’ brow furrows. He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, it _was_ beautiful. But the most… the best one I’ve seen is yours.”

Erik chuckles, the knot of worry still writhing away at his chest suddenly loosening just a little bit. “You’re joking!”

“No,” Charles insists, grinning. “I’m not.”

“But it’s so dirty!” Erik exclaims.

Charles laughs. “Lots of planets are dirty!”

“Erik…” Moira’s low voice warns. The sun above is completely gone now. Erik ignores her and the darkness and what it means, stepping in to Charles’ space that last little distance so they’re nearly chest to chest.

“That’s true,” he says fondly. “I have to give you that. So what makes Earth so great?”

“You,” Charles says. It’s honest. Unembarrassed. Matter-of-fact. And with it so blatantly in the open, Erik feels the last of his apprehension drain away. He swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat, leaning down so he can rest his forehead against Charles’.

“Out of all the car roofs in all of Manhattan, you could have crashed through, you crashed through mine,” he breathes.

“Yes,” Charles says, and Erik can hear the smile in his voice.

“Good,” Erik says, hearing the crack and the roughness in his own voice. He ignores it, wrapping Charles a little tighter in his arms. “That’s good.” He nuzzles against Charles’ nose, an eskimo kiss, unable to find the proper words for what he feels he needs to say. Luckily, Charles finds them for him.

“I love you,” Charles breathes.

Erik lets out a breath he didn’t realize had been stuck in his chest with a quiet sigh. “I love you,” he answers.

It’s the truest thing he’s ever said. He hopes Charles knows this; that he can feel the honesty of it rolling off Erik in waves into his mind like a warm, soothing balm. He’s never doubted Charles. He will never doubt Charles. But if this is their last moment together—here in the dark, locked in this ancient cosmic battle that neither of them asked to be a part of—Erik will spend it flowing over with love. He will make sure that even if all the other light in the universe goes out, Charles will have this one moment of brightness to cling to with their last breaths, shared together in the almost nonexistence space between their lips.

Charles lets out a quiet noise, and then the space is gone. Charles’ mouth is hot on Erik’s, kissing him urgently, passionately, a hand tangling in Erik’s hair. Erik groans and shifts to deepen the kiss, his tongue sliding along Charles’ bottom lip until Charles opens his mouth, letting Erik in. The hand in Erik’s hair tightens.

Then suddenly Charles is pulling away, his back arching. He cries out, and Erik lets him fall backwards, blinking dumbly, shock coursing through him. All he can do is support Charles as he bends away from Erik’s body, arms going limp and falling away from Erik as he continues to scream. And abruptly, the sound changes. Suddenly it’s not Charles’ voice anymore, but a thousand voices—male, female, child, every conceivable sound that could be made by vocal chords, human or otherwise—spilling from Charles’ lips.

There’s no time for anything else than the acknowledgement, no time for Erik to do anything at all, because then Charles’ body gives another jolt and then there’s _light_ coming from him. A beam of light, bright and pure as new snow, shooting out of Charles’ mouth and up through the skylight. Erik’s heart hammers against his ribcage. He doesn’t notice the way the lights from the stones have grown brighter, as well. He cannot see anything except for Charles.

He feels a tugging—almost painful—from his core and he wonders wildly if he and Charles may be being pulled apart. Charles had said he might not survive this. Erik chokes out a sob that sounds foreign to his own ears, and shoves the thought away instantly.

_Come on_ , he thinks desperately as Charles’ scream thuds against his eardrums, as the light from Charles begins to blind him. He grits his teeth, the tugging sensation turning to an all-out, white-hot burning pull that he cannot fight against even if he wanted to. _Come on, come **on**_.

The thrumming, adamant pounding of the noise in his head and the pain in his core is so intense he feels as if he might actually be dying, too. He opens his mouth and without thinking, lets out a shout that loud as it must be, is inaudible over Charles’. Though he can barely feel anything except that inexorable twisting pulling, he keeps his arms locked tight around Charles’ back. It feels like this moment is stretching out into eternity. If this is dying, Erik had never thought it would be like this. But he will not let Charles fall. _He will not let go._

And just like that it’s over. With a final flash, the light explodes into nothingness. Charles’ scream is choked off, the voices gone, the pulling in his chest gone—everything gone—so Charles is just laying there in Erik’s arms, limp as a ragdoll. Though there’s still light coming off the stones, Erik can tell the periphery of his vision is going dark. He staggers, shifting his grip on Charles, and crumples, hard and painfully, to his knees, but keeps Charles supported, cradled close to his chest.

“Charles,” he breathes, voice barely more than a rasp. He sits back on the stone, dragging Charles across his lap, vision swimming. Raising a hand, he cups Charles’ cheek, trying to figure out if it’s still warm, but he’s just so _tired…_

“Charles, wake up,” he murmurs.

Eyelids fluttering, and fighting stubbornly against the sleep he can feel already pulling him under, Erik lets his hand drop to Charles’ chest, and somehow, through all the fog, he feels the slow but steady rise and fall of Charles’ breathing. He smiles, exhausted, trying to hold back a sob of relief by biting hard on his lip, but it doesn't quite work. He hears someone call out his name and feels a pair of hands warm on his back. And then he doesn’t feel anything at all.

 

*

 

There’s a dull ache in Charles’ head. Blearily, fighting back the discomfort, Charles forces his eyes to flutter open for half a second. He sees blue, the inside of a tube, feels a warm arm pressed alongside his own. Then the overwhelming confusion grabs ahold of him and sinks him once more into the gentle arms of an oblivious sleep.

When he comes to again, he knows from the slick slide of sheets around him that he’s somewhere else; somewhere softer, warmer. There’s an arm around his waist, a leg curled around his own, and a nose blowing hot breath against his ear. Still tired, but not nearly as exhausted as before, he opens his eyes once more and finds himself staring at a completely foreign ceiling. A soft sigh, rushes out through his parted lips, and he swallows, closing his eyes. He’s alive. For a few minutes he lets himself focus entirely on feeling his body, savoring the rush of hot blood coursing through him from his toes to the the top of his head, breathing slowly. Once he’s satisfied himself that everything is indeed still there, he opens his eyes again.

Turning slightly in the octopus-like embrace, he sees Erik on the pillow beside him. He isn’t surprised at all, though he is a little curious. Smiling softly, he runs his fingers under the blanket and along the arm wrapped around his middle until he gets to Erik’s hand and tangles their fingers together. From the slackness of Erik’s face and limbs, he’s apparently still deep asleep, and when Charles reaches out with a tentative tendril of power to brush his mind, this hunch is confirmed. Erik’s out cold, and not about to wake soon without any encouragement from Charles. Charles’ smile widens, and he settles a more firmly back into the pillow. His questions can wait. For now, he knows he’s safe and warm, and secure.

After many long, lingering moments, Charles decides it would probably be good to look at something besides Erik’s sleeping face and lifts his head slightly to look around the room. It’s not like anything on the Magneto, and it’s not Raven or Moira’s apartment either. There’s a lamp on the bedside table behind Erik, and his comm link is plugged into a power source. Next to the table is a doorframe, but the door is shut and the angle too awkward for Charles to see through it even if it were open.

On the adjoining wall, however, another door rests half-open, and through this one Charles can see a cramped living and dining room space with a couch, a table, and two chairs. The light in the next room is off, but a dull, sooty kind of sunlight is coming in through a window Charles can’t see. He knows that sunlight. They must be back in New York, and this must be Erik’s apartment. A quick mental sweep of the area with his telepathy—which he finds, to his great relief, to be entirely painless but effectual—shows they’re alone.

Satisfied for the moment, he drops his head back to the pillow, thinking about snuggling in for another nap until Erik wakes, but as he shifts closer, he accidentally jostles Erik’s leg, and a second later he feels Erik’s consciousness as a bright spark at the borders of his mind. Though Erik’s mind is quick to waken, it’s sluggish to become alert. Charles watches, fondness welling up fast and strong within him, as Erik’s face scrunches up—the bridge of his nose and corners of his eyes crinkling momentarily—then relaxes slowly as his eyes blink open. As soon as he registers Charles watching him, a slow, sleepy smile spreads across his face.

“Charles,” he says, voice deep and rough with sleep.

“Good morning,” Charles answers, lifting a hand to brush gently through Erik’s somewhat rumpled hair. “Am I at your house, love?” Erik makes a low noise of affirmation and pleasure at the back of his throat, turning into Charles’ touch. A smile twitches at the corner of Charles’ lips. “Thought so.”

Erik groans again, his hand sliding down Charles’ back toward his ass, resting just before the curve of it. “You should have woken me up,” he says. He leans down so their noses are nearly overlapping, mouths inches apart.

Charles shrugs. “I knew I was safe,” he says. “My headache’s gone and telepathy’s back. There’s no one else in the apartment and you were out like a lightbulb.” He pauses as Erik chuckles. “What?”

“Technically speaking, the phrase is ‘out like a light’,” Erik answers. “But you get an a for effort. Picking up colloquialisms like a pro.”

“Yes, well,” Charles says, colouring, “I think it’s best I become fluent.”

“Do you?” Erik teases.

Charles nods, just the tiniest bit of nervousness creeping up his spine. “If I’m to stay here,” he explains.

Erik leans back the slightest bit, looking Charles in the eye, gaze soft and hopeful. He slides his hand back up Charles’ side until he reaches his jaw, cupping it softly, thumb brushing over his cheek. Charles smiles, warmth stealing over his insides like he’s just had a gulp of hot coffee. It’s silly, really, that he should feel like he’s going out on a limb admitting the depth of his feelings for Erik after all they’ve already spoken about it, and especially after what they did together in the pyramid. Somehow, though, it feels more real now. With nothing else standing between them, no threat of death or cosmic annihilation, they’re the only ones who could potentially fuck this up. And if there’s one thing Charles knows, it’s that he never, ever wants to do anything to damage this thing between them.

“You did promise me a garden,” Charles points out, and Erik throws back his head with a bark of surprised laughter.

“I guess I did,” he says around a chuckle. His eyes are bright and sparkling as he looks across at Charles. “I have to warn you, though, I may have been exaggerating with my gardening prowess. We might not get much to harvest at first.”

“That’s all right,” Charles says, soothing a hand up and down the side of Erik’s ribcage. “We can learn together.”

He leans forward, wanting to catch that smile off Erik’s lips with his own. Sure enough, when Erik meets him halfway and lets Charles press a soft, chaste kiss to the curve of his mouth, the smile widens and a quiet laugh huffs out of Erik’s nose, brushing across Charles’ cheek. Charles can’t help but grin back. The swell of contentment coming off Erik’s mind is so defined he can practically feel it washing around him in the air like a safety net. The hand on Charles’ cheek migrates back towards his hair, sliding into the waves and curls, stroking gently at his scalp and keeping him close.

Charles groans quietly, slipping one of his legs to tangle between Erik’s, drawing them that much closer. From the proximity, Charles can feel Erik’s cock begin to stir through the layers of their clothing and against the inside of his thigh. Pulse beginning to jump, he grinds forward without thinking, pulling a sharp gasp from Erik’s throat, his hips twitching forward to chase Charles’. Grinning, Charles nips at Erik’s bottom lip, then instantly soothes his tongue over the spot, making it better, brushing a caress over the swirl of Erik’s thoughts. He’s sorely tempted to press forward again, rocking them together until the pleasure sparking low in his gut and at the edges of Erik’s mind spills over. But there’s time for that later. Soon. For now he’s still curious.

With an apologetic kiss to the corner of Erik’s mouth, Charles pulls away, pressing at Erik’s chest to make sure he doesn’t chase him. Erik blinks at him, eyes dark with arousal and expression confused. He shifts a little further away so they aren’t pressed so tightly together, and Charles lets him go, but not too far, with the hand still resting on Erik’s side.

“Sorry,” Charles says. “I _do_ want to celebrate being alive with you, and all. But I have to know what happened first.”

The lines beginning to crease Erik’s forehead smooth out and he nods in understanding, drawing his bottom lip into his mouth as if chasing Charles’ taste. “What do you remember?”

“The ritual in the pyramid,” Charles says. “Saying I love you and hearing you say it back. Kissing you. And then just a blinding white light and pain everywhere. It felt like I wasn’t in my own body anymore, but I don’t know where I could have been if also I felt so much. I was screaming. And then I guess I passed out.”

Erik nods. “That’s a lot of it,” he says. “And most of what I remember, too. I passed out almost right after you did. The others had to carry us out of the pyramid, apparently.”

“What about Marko and Cain?” Charles asks.

“Wade stayed with a phaser to guard them, apparently, while everyone else took us back to the base. Then Raven and Irene brought reinforcements to arrest Marko and his son while Moira and Logan flew us to an emergency med station Logan knew about in New York. The one you were originally revived in. He knows one of the medics there, and he put us in this Regenerator thing.”

Charles hums, nodding. “I remember that machine,” he reflects. “That’s why that blue light looked so familiar.”

“You were awake for that too?” Erik asks, eyebrows raised.

Charles shakes his head. “Just for a second,” he says. “Just enough to know I was alive and not in the pyramid anymore. So we stopped the Dark Planet?”

Erik grins cheekily. “So it would seem.” Charles rolls his eyes and gives a gentle pinch to Erik’s side, which makes him jerk and laugh again, tickled instead of hurt.

“All right, all right,” Erik relents. He pauses, beaming down at Charles, radiating pride and happiness in nearly ineffable amounts. “It stopped with 92,000 miles to impact,” he says, eyes dancing. Charles’ answering smile is instant. He feels like he might burst apart with the relief and joy. “It’s dead. Completely dead. Logan told me when I woke up, just after we got out of the machine. He said a fleet of ships flew up to break it apart safely, so no chunks went flying into anything important.”

Charles laughs incredulously, and when Erik joins in and tugs him closer into a bone-crushing hug, he goes enthusiastically, hugging back just as tight. A moment later, at the corners of his tightly shut eyes, he feels a slight prickling and he realizes with another surprised laugh that he’s crying, too. _Oh well_ , he thinks to himself, and buries his face in Erik’s shoulder, reveling in the warm realness of him.

After a while, their laughter dies down and their grip on each other loosens enough that Charles can roll away just enough to lock his gaze on Erik’s once more, uncaring that his eyelashes may still be damp. He has never in his life felt so perfectly at peace. Of course Erik sees this on his face, because his gaze goes soft again and he finds Charles’ hand, cradling it gently.

“You didn’t wake up the whole drive home,” he continues quietly. “I was worried at first. But Irene assured me you’d be fine, so I knew it had to be true. She and Logan and Raven and Wade dropped us off before they went to Raven’s place to sleep. I was planning to stay awake until you woke up—I told them I’d call as soon as you did—but then a few hours went by and I was still so exhausted… I couldn’t.”

Charles smiles, sliding his hand into Erik’s hair to card at the strands. “That’s all right,” he says. “It wasn’t an unpleasant way to start my morning. Afternoon. Whatever time it is.”

Erik grins back and leans down to capture Charles’ mouth once more in a slow, deep kiss. Charles leans into it, opening his mouth for Erik’s tongue with a sigh when it slides along his bottom lip, wrapping his leg more securely around Erik’s. They’re both wearing pajamas still, soft warm knit things that are too long in the limb so Charles knows they must be Erik’s, but though they’re comfortable, Charles has the sudden urge to be rid of them. He remembers how good it felt that night on the ship, pressed together skin to skin, Erik’s hands warm and sure as they worked to take him apart piece by piece. More than anything else he wants that again, and he keens high in his throat as Erik shifts, pressing forwards so their still clothed erections brush infinitesimally.

It’s not enough. Pressing his mouth more insistently to Erik’s, Charles’ fingers drift to the hem of Erik’s shirt, pulling it up slowly, inch by tantalizing inch, until it’s rucked up under his armpits. “If it’s all the same to you,” Charles breathes, “I don’t think the others would mind if we waited a bit to call.”

Erik chuckles, raising his arms so Charles can shuck his shirt off entirely, grinning wolfishly as he throws the fabric away. Charles’ stomach flips in anticipation. “This is the best idea you’ve had yet, _Schatz_ ,” Erik replies.

Biting his lip against the wide grin beginning to steal over his face, Charles leans down and seals their lips together once more, pushing at Erik’s shoulder at the same time and turning them both so he can slide his knee more fully in between Erik’s legs, ranging out on top of him, Erik’s hands at his waist. Erik sighs into his mouth, fingers tickling up under Charles’ shirt.

Before, their coupling had been hurried, frantic even at points. Now, with all the time in the world stretching out before them, Charles promises himself to take things slow. He enjoys himself for a while by finding exactly the way Erik likes to have his tongue sucked and caressed, Charles swallowing down each little noise of pleasure he makes. Then, as Erik’s hands begin to migrate further up under Charles’ shirt, Charles turns his attention to Erik’s lips, feeling out the subtle shifts in his thoughts as Charles kisses him long and slow, then harder, more urgent. And just as both his and Erik’s pulses begin to race, Charles’ cock so hard he doesn’t know how long he’ll be able to stand the game of cat-and-mouse this time, he backs off, giving them space to breathe so their mouths are just barely brushing.

Opening his eyes, he sees Erik’s already looking at him, pupils blown wide, lips red and slick from Charles’ kisses. One by one, Erik’s fingers caress their way up the notches in Charles’ spine as they just pause, watching each other, catching their breath. Slowly, Charles lets his eyes flutter shut once more and leans back down, dropping a kiss to the corner of Erik’s mouth, his cheek, the side of his jaw. He travels further down, trailing his lips under Erik’s ear, down the column of his throat, and as he does, Erik tugs his shirt until at last Charles has to break away for a moment so Erik can remove it completely.

With his hands free once more, Charles uses one to brace against the bed and drops the other to the outside of Erik’s thigh, teasing up and down the fabric there, migrating closer and closer in with each sweep. Bucking up slightly, Erik slides his fingers into Charles’ hair, and with a grin Charles finally gives in. Giving his leg one final caress, Charles drags his fingers over the Erik’s upper thigh and presses his palm against the tented fabric covering his cock. Erik sighs, grinding against the pressure just enough to get some relief, sending the mental equivalent of a sloppy kiss Charles’ way.

Once he figures out how to ignore his own erection, Charles starts to think how much he would enjoy exploring Erik’s body inch by inch like this, just with his lips, for as long as Erik would let him. And for the moment, at least, he and Erik seem to be on the same page with how enjoyable this is. The quiet noises—gasps and hitching breaths—that Erik makes as Charles maps the skin of his neck and chest are better than any other sound Charles has heard. Earlier there had been a veiled intensity to Erik’s movements; much as he’d been willing to let Charles take the lead with their kisses, from the tenor of his thoughts, Charles could tell he wasn’t going to lie back and let Charles have his way with him entirely. At some point, Erik had plans of his own.

But the knowledge that Erik is enjoying himself deeply, each press of Charles’ lips against him and each grind of his palm is like a rush of air from a bellows stoking the fire within him, making him that much more eager to make _Charles_ feel this good. The thought sends a shiver down Charles’ spine. He nips lightly at the skin just under Erik’s fast-beating heart, nuzzling it for a moment while Erik’s fingers twist lazily in his air. Then, gathering himself, he moves on. He kisses the jumping muscles just below Erik’s ribcage and relishes the harsh gasp it pulls from Erik, and the way it makes one of Erik’s hands, previously twisting lazily through Charles’ hair, flop abruptly to the side of the bed, clutching the sheet.

“ _God_ , Charles,” he whispers, staring down at him.

Charles grins, raising his eyes just enough to meet Erik’s. “Yes, darling?”

Erik’s gaze turns suddenly stormy, and something in Charles’ chest crows with delight. He spares a wistful moment to reflect that his time teasing Erik is probably up, but he can’t bring himself to care much as Erik practically drags Charles back up his body by his arm, ducking his head to meet him halfway for a hard, fierce kiss. The desperation is back in force now. It swirls in the air around them like a cloud, making Charles’ heart thump loudly in his ears, awareness of his own aching cock retuning with a vengeance.

Luckily, Erik seems to have lost all his patience for this slow dance. Still keeping their lips firmly locked, Erik sits up, pulling Charles into his lap, the fingers of one hand cupped gently under Charles’ chin while the others tug at the waistband on Charles’ pants, pulling it impatiently down. Charles is quick to assist him, wriggling somewhat awkwardly out of the legs though he’s still crouched on his knees over Erik’s lap. But the struggle doesn’t last long, and Erik kisses him, grinning through it. In no time at all, Charles’ pants have joined their shirts on the floor.

Charles drops one last firm kiss on Erik’s mouth, then sits back on his heels, smiling impishly at Erik who looks almost comically put-out at the sudden loss of contact. “Now this is a familiar sight,” Charles says, running his hands down Erik’s sides. “Me naked in your lap and you completely clothed.” He shakes his head, pursing his lips. “This isn’t fair at all, minaï.”

Erik snorts, shaking his head, equal parts fond and disbelieving. “I didn’t hear you complaining before,” he says, though his hand lifts and settles on the edge of the fabric, thumb hooked under and brushing his skin.

“Before I was too impatient,” Charles replies, letting his fingers to tangle with Erik’s, pulling the waistband down just that much further. “We aren’t sneaking around now. I want to see all of you.”

“You’ll have to get off me, then,” Erik warns.

Sighing, Charles gives Erik’s fingers one last squeeze then slips off to the side of his lap, sitting back on his butt on top of the covers, one elbow propped up against the pillows. Charles’ gaze is hungry as he watches Erik stand and giving him a smirk as he slides the waistband slowly down over his hips, then over his cock—so hard it’s leaking precome already.

“How do you want to do this, Charles?” Erik asks, voice low and husky as he strips.

Charles swallows around a suddenly dry throat. Unconsciously, his hand starts to creep across the bed, aching to touch, but Erik’s too far away and his grin only widens as he sees Charles’ mounting frustration. The pajamas slip down Erik’s legs inch by tantalizing inch and Charles practically whines, but he doesn’t move any further than he has already. He’s pinned to the bed with Erik’s gaze and the waves of lust coming off him, the myriad images of all the things Erik wants to do to him.

He wants to hold Charles down, arms and legs riveted by the metal frame of the bedpost and suck his cock until Charles is a writhing, shaking mess underneath him. He wants the positions reversed, Charles on top of him, riding him, taking all his pleasure from Erik like a cloth being wrung out. He wants to ride _Charles_ , achingly slow and deep until the both of them are shivering from the intensity of it. He wants to watch as Charles holds himself open and fucks himself with a metal vibrator, latching onto the feeling of the metal as Charles constricts around it.

Charles gasps in a ragged breath, ducking out of Erik’s mind before he comes and makes a complete idiot of himself. Erik’s grin is positively lascivious as he stares Charles down, kicking the pajamas off his legs and climbing back up on the bed, looming over Charles in a reverse of the way they started, resting their foreheads together and nuzzling him gently.

“ _Schatz_?”

Charles takes a deep breath, shoving away the residual tendrils of those images, trying to focus on now; what he wants, how it feels to have Erik warm and solid above him. He closes his eyes, resting his hand over the one Erik has braced on the bed, rubbing idly across the bones there. He remembers back to two nights before, when Erik’s fingers had twisted against that spot within him, sending a shock of pleasure right to his core, almost whiting out his vision. Sighing, he wraps his other hand around the back of Erik’s neck, drawing him down for a soft, slow kiss. The other options Erik had thought of will be something else to look forward to. For now, he just wants that feeling again, to explore it rather than just use it for a half-desperate fuck.

“Can we…” He pauses, gathering himself. “I want your fingers,” he breathes. “Your fingers. You inside me. Slow. Do you want that?”

Erik nods, letting out a shaky laugh. “Yes,” he says, dropping a kiss to Charles’ lips. “Absolutely.” There’s a rattling from the bedside table as the drawer opens on presumably gliders. Erik presses another kiss to Charles’ mouth before murmuring, “Hold on a sec.”

He stretches out the entirety of his long, lean frame, unwilling apparently, to leave the comfort of Charles’ lap, and reaches into the drawer, reappearing a second later with a half-full bottle of some kind of clear liquid. Then, he pulls one of the pillows down from against the headboard and with some careful maneuvering places it beneath Charles’ hips. The pillow seems to make some sense to Charles, who watches bemused as Erik turns his attention back to the bottle he surfaced with, but as Erik takes the bottle between his hands and begins to twirl it between them, he frowns.

“What’s that about?” Charles asks.

Erik’s eyes spark with fondness, a smile twitching at his mouth. “Lube,” he says. “Short for lubrication. It’s so I don’t hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me last time,” Charles says.

Erik licks his lips, looking up at Charles fleetingly under his lashes. “Not to brag, but I get the feeling there’s going to be a pretty big difference between my fingers and my cock.”

Charles raises his eyebrows, gaze traveling down to land on Erik’s still very prominent erection, considering. Not that Charles has a lot of experience, but it’s true that Erik’s undeniably large. When they’d had sex before, Erik’s fingers hadn’t hurt at all. His own fingers, when he’s tried fingering himself a handful of times, haven’t hurt either. Human sex is a new concept to him—similar as it is to Elemental sex, or so he’d been told—but for some reason he hadn’t apparently considered all the variables like he thought he had. He bites his lip, unsure.

“Look,” Erik says gently, tipping Charles’ head back to make him look him in the eye. “I want to do what you want to do. We’ll go slow so it’s only good. Only comfortable. And if at any point I start to hurt you instead, you tell me and we’ll stop. We’ll do something else, something that feels good.”

Charles nods. “Okay,” he says, relaxing.

Erik gives him a small smile, directing his attention back to the bottle. “Nobody likes cold lube,” he explains. “Usually if you have the patience, it’s nice to warm it up. Just so you know, when you’re the one doing this.”

Charles chuckles. “Duly noted.”

After a moment, Erik seems to decide that the bottle and the liquid inside must be warm enough, because he pauses, nodding speculatively, and shifts, tucking a leg in between Charles and scooting a little bit down the bed. He looks up at Charles, eyes piercing, but not hard, just direct. He begins to soothe a hand up and down Charles’ thigh, that little touch alone enough to melt Charles that bit more so his legs fall more open, giving Erik more space to move where he will. His cock, which had begun to flag slightly while Erik was warming the lube, gives an interested twitch. With gentle hands, Erik guides Charles down until he’s lying flat on his back above the covers, chest rising and falling more rapidly as the anticipation mounts.

Erik leans down, pressing a kiss to Charles’ forehead, his cheek. “I was wondering,” he begins slowly, the hand on Charles’ thigh migrating inward and back so it’s hooking Charles’ leg slightly to the side, spreading him open, “feel free to say no. But it might be good if I used my mouth, too. I’d like to try.”

Swallowing, heart hammering, Charles gives Erik a jerk of a nod, curling his hand around Erik’s ear, into his hair, tugging it slightly so he can bring Erik’s head down for a swift kiss before releasing him, letting him glide down Charles’ body toward his cock and past it, settling between Charles’ knees. He presses his lips to the side of Charles’ knee before letting it go, reaching once more for the lube. Charles lets his leg flop down where Erik drops it, feeling a little embarrassingly exposed, but Erik’s mind is nothing but a swirl of delight and pleasure, thinking about how beautiful Charles looks, flushed and open like this. He forces his own embarrassment away, submerged underneath Erik’s emotions and smiles twitchily despite himself.

“Remember to talk to me,” Erik says quietly. The bottle clicks open and Charles lifts his head to watch as Erik spreads a liberal amount of the contents over two of his fingers. “Promise.”

“Promise,” Charles breathes.

Erik looks up, giving him a rather impish grin. “Okay, then,” he says.

His hand disappears between Charles’ legs and a second later, Charles feels a wet digit slide over his perineum, catching on the rim of his hole. He sucks in a breath of surprise—even though he’d known it was coming, it’s not a sensation he’s used to—but when Erik drops a reassuring kiss to the inside of Charles’ thigh, he lets out the air in a rush, letting his legs which had tensed around Erik without his realizing relax open again.

_Good?_ Erik asks in his mind. He swirls his finger over the spot and warmth begins to spread up Charles’ spine.

_Good_ , Charles replies, sighing, sliding his hands up behind his head and grasping at the rungs of the headboard when it hits his fingers.

Erik lets out a quiet hum and the finger presses in to rub more insistently at the spot until finally it slips in, tearing a moan from Charles’ throat. Charles closes his eyes, trying to ration his breaths so he doesn’t let himself run away with the sensation too quickly. Once he’s past the initial awkwardness of the intrusion, he can focus instead on how good it feels. Erik’s fingers are long and gentle. He takes his time with the first finger, crooking and sliding it so gradually Charles doesn’t notice how far inside it actually is until he feels the bump of Erik’s other knuckles against the underside of his ass.

Groaning, Charles rolls his hips, a silent request for more, and Erik quickly obliges him, pressing another finger against the first, easing it in with as much care as he promised he would. He starts to scissor them, and Charles bucks, chasing the feeling and the way it sends sparks up his spine, forcing the fingers in deeper. Gasping, Charles’ eyes fly open wide. He grips the headboard so tightly a distant part of him realizes his knuckles are probably white, but he can’t help himself; not when Erik’s fingers just brushed over that spot inside him that make it feel as if every nerve in his body is lighting up at once.

“ _Seno_ ,” he mumbles, the swear falling from his lips without thought. His hips still, and at the same time, so does Erik’s hand.

“Okay?” Erik asks.

Charles nods blearily, then realizes Erik can’t see him. He lifts his head with more effort than he thought such a movement would take and nods again, breathing slowly through his nose. Releasing the bedpost he curls one of his hands into Erik’s hair, scratching gently over his scalp, until Erik is practically purring.

_It’s good_ , Charles sends, not trusting his voice yet. _A lot, but good._

_Too much?_ Erik asks.

Charles gasps when Erik scissors his fingers experimentally again. “ _Me **veno**_ , “ he breathes, hand constricting in Erik’s hair. He rolls his hips again experimentally, but when pleasure returns without overwhelming him he relaxes his hold in Erik’s hair. “More. Yaknan, Mino minai.”

Grinning wide, Erik’s face disappears between his legs. A sloppy, wet kiss to the side of Charles’ cock makes him jerk, and he nearly sends Erik an admonishing ghost of a pinch to his backside in retaliation, but Erik seems content to leave it at that for now, nuzzling in closer to the spot where his fingers disappear inside, sneaking an elbow underneath Charles’ knee to brace himself a little more effectively. At the same time, Charles feels Erik nudge his shoulders up under Charles’ legs, lifting his hips a few inches higher off the bed. Getting the hint, Charles wraps his legs around Erik’s back, taking a deep bracing breath just at the same he feels the flat of Erik’s tongue teasing at his rim.

“Ah!” Charles’ whole body arches before he can stop himself, the hand in Erik’s hair flying to the side to grasp the bedclothes, bunching them in a fist as an electric jolt of pleasure lances through him, radiating out from his center.

Erik hums happily and the feeling only increases, Charles’ eyes snapping shut against it, rocking on Erik’s hand, not quite knowing if he’s chasing the sensation or trying to get away from it. Another moan escapes him as the fingers inside him twist, fucking steadily in and out as Erik laves at the space around them. Charles’ cock twitches, a drop of precome falling from the tip to just under his belly button, and he bites his lip, breathing slow, measured breaths through his nose, grasping the headboard a little tighter with the hand still wrapped around it, concentrating on the coldness of the metal, hoping it will help to cool him down a little as well.

He must be projecting because Erik eases back for a moment, tongue disappearing for a moment so it’s just Erik’s fingers, slippery with lube and spit, stretching him open even wider than before. Then the tongue returns, slipping in _with_ the fingers which are hooked deep within him and barely _barely_ brushing that bundle of nerves so he awareness of it is constantly on Charles’ periphery though the payoff is never there while his tongue teases and stretches him.

Charles groans loud and long enough that he should be embarrassed, but all thoughts of everything outside this room, everything outside this _bed_ are gone. He bucks shamelessly against the intrusion, feeling like it’s a miracle he’s still hard and hasn’t come yet all over his stomach. It’s too much. It feels the way it did on the ship right before he toppled over the edge, breath hitching in his throat with every snag of Erik’s fingers inside him, every ripple of his tongue. But still, it’s not enough.

“Erik, Erik,” he breathes urgently. “Erik, please.”

The tongue withdraws and Charles lets out a sigh, relaxing somewhat back against the bed. The shoulders bracing his legs retreat as Erik sticks his head up over Charles’ stomach again, face flushed and mouth wet.

“ _Schatz_?”

“I’m ready,” Charles whispers, reaching for Erik with uncoordinated hands that feel as if they’re made of jelly. “Please, I’m ready.”

“God, _yes_ ,” Erik hisses.

Crawling up over Charles’ torso again, he braces himself on one hand and dips to seal their lips together once more in a scorching kiss that leaves Chares’ toes curling. Without breaking off, Charles feels Erik’s hand find the crook of his leg again lifting Charles’ knee so it’s nearly pressed against his chest, folding him in half. The other leg hooks around Erik’s back in encouragement, tilting Charles’ hips up, and a second later Charles reaches down to take Erik’s cock in hand for amazingly the first time since they began. Erik groans, biting Charles’ bottom lip and pausing, breathing harshly.

_Okay_ , Erik says after a moment, mental voice as shaky as Charles himself feels.

Then, with the leg hooked around Erik’s back and the hand on his cock, Charles guides Erik to his entrance where Erik takes over, pressing slowly in, the pressure against his rim enough to make Charles’ pulse race even faster. And all of the sudden, with another twitch of Erik’s hips, it slides inside, dragging a surprised, low groan from Charles’ throat.

Erik pauses, breathing raggedly against Charles’ lips, keening when Charles flutters around him, adjusting to the intrusion, and Charles pauses too, hands tight on Erik’s middle as he breathes evenly, trying to keep relaxed. It’s not painful. That much is certain. It is an _odd_ feeling, however. There’s a pressure and stretch more than he’s ever experienced, focusing all his attention on the sensitive place where they’re joined. He can feel every bit of Erik’s length inside him, the hot heaviness of it and the way it gives a jerk when Charles clenches carefully, experimentally around it.

“God, Charles,” Erik huffs, half-laugh half-gasp. His hips rock forward and and he slides in a little deeper.

Charles groans, eyelids slamming shut. “ _Oh_ , this feels…” he begins, but he doesn’t know how to finish.

He adjusts his hands, gripping instead at Erik’s shoulder and the back of his neck, squeezing gently in what he hopes is a reassuring manner, forcing his eyes open so he can look up at Erik. Erik’s own gaze is dark, half-lidded, with an intense expression of both affection and concentration in its depths. Charles smiles and rocks experimentally, sliding further onto Erik’s cock, and is rewarded with a shallow thrust in return. The fingers of his right hand migrate up to dip lightly into the short hairs at the base of Erik’s skull, stroking Erik as he presses in deeper and deeper, breathy noises falling unconsciously from Charles’ lips as he lets himself do nothing but feel.

Then Erik gets in far enough that he brushes against the spot that makes sparks dance along Charles’ spine and he gasps, thrusting upward, sinking Erik in completely until he bottoms out, balls flush against Charles’ ass. Charles breathes raggedly, drawing Erik down to kiss him, open mouthed and needy, heart hammering faster than ever. Erik’s hips still, mind a whirl of color and light that proves he’s just as affected by the change in position as Charles is, and he kisses Charles back with a fervor that speaks to the truth of those thoughts, tongues tangling together, Erik sucking on Charles’ gently and drawing another keening noise from him.

_Erik_ … Charles urges, projection shaky and uncoordinated like the rest of him.

Not needing any further encouragement, Erik pulls out just a fraction, then slams his hips forward, harder than Charles anticipated. Charles sees stars. Gasping against Erik’s open mouth, he arches, the head of his cock bouncing against Erik’s stomach, making him jerk as another spark of pleasure hits him at the touch. Erik thrusts again, letting out a quiet groan that seems to vibrate through Charles’ whole body. He holds onto Erik’s shoulder, rolling his hips as Erik sets a rhythm, not too fast—Charles had asked for it to be slow—but agonizingly deep.

Sweat is breaking out on Charles’ chest and forehead. Beads roll down to catch in his hair every time Erik rocks into him, sometimes hitting that spot, sometimes just missing it. Charles rucks his leg up higher on Erik’s hip, trying to adjust the angle so Erik has more control, and it works; the next time Erik pushes forward the head of his cock brushes the bundle of nerves, and Charles cries out sharply, trying to screw himself down on the thickness inside him and keep Erik pressed there. A loud groan falls from Erik’s mouth as Charles clenches around him, and he stills, breathing raggedly, raising himself slightly so he and Charles no longer share breath.

Charles looks up at him and sees a blush high on Erik’s cheekbones, his eyes shut tight and red mouth open around a silent _oh_. Smiling mischievously, Charles clenches again, circling his hips and Erik shouts, the hand that had at some point migrated to the inside of Charles’ thigh digging in so Charles can feel the prick of his fingernails.

“Erik,” Charles purrs, and Erik’s eyes flutter open, irises merely a light grey ring around the dark pupils. “Amoun. Darling.” He rolls his hips, biting at his lip while Erik watches, blinking rapidly, and his cock brushes Erik’s stomach again. He hums a sigh, corners of his mouth twitching when he feels Erik’s cock give an infinitesimal jerk and his hips stutter.

“Charles, if you knew how you looked,” Erik breathes, trailing off.

“I know how I look,” Charles answers.

And he does. Erik’s thinking so loudly about how much he adores the disheveled way Charles’ hair is spread out across the pillow, the vast wide blue of his gaze, the redness of his bitten lips and the hot, leaking jut of his cock curving up against Erik’s abdomen. It would be impossible to miss, even if Charles weren’t looking, but he is because he never, ever wants to be anywhere else but here, wrapped around Erik mind and body, feeling his warmth and his pulse as it jumps under Charles’ hand, locked together tighter than Charles ever dreamed he could be with another person.

“This is how you make me, Erik,” Charles murmurs. He squeezes around the length inside him once more, rolling his hips, drawing another keening breath from Erik. “So good, I can’t….” he breaks off because Erik’s slammed his hips forward and brushed the nerves again, but he swallows around his moan and continues because it’s important Erik knows. “I don’t have words to say how it feels. So… full,” he tries and Erik groans, hips snapping.

Charles laughs breathlessly, but every drag of Erik’s cock—and his thrusts are coming hard and fast now—is hitting that spot, and the laugh quickly turns into a moan, his toes curling against Erik’s back. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he hisses.

Erik’s hand closes around Charles’ prick and Charles arches, eyes flying open even wider, crying out at the onslaught of pleasure coursing through him, untamable now, he knows. He rocks desperately back and forth, onto Erik’s cock and into his hand, trying to speak to tell Erik how good it is, but not being able to think of the words through the swell of his orgasm pooling fast and hot at the base of his spine.

“Come,” Erik commands, low and inexorable. “Let go, you can let go of everything, Charles, just hold on to me—”

And just like that Charles is powerless to do anything but obey. He releases the last vestiges of self-control from wearied, grasping fingers and throws his head back with a drawn-out cry, wrapping his arms around Erik’s shoulders and holding tight as if his life depends on it. Shockwave after shockwave of ecstasy shoots through him. He feels his body arching, and Erik buries himself deep within Charles one last time before he too topples over the edge, hot come coating Charles’ inner walls as he flutters around Erik’s twitching cock.

Charles’ breath is coming in sharp, short bursts, but he hardly registers it, shaking through the last waves of his orgasm, stars dancing behind his eyes, which he realizes now have flown shut. Quickly, he opens them, suddenly wildly determined to see Erik’s face. Erik is watching him with wide eyes, mouth open as he breathes unevenly, hand skating up and down Charles’ ribs. For a moment, Charles can only blink up at him, flowing over with amazement at the amount he loves this person and wanting to express it but not quite knowing how. Uselessly, he bundles the feelings up and shoves them softly at Erik, letting them unfold one by one for his perusal.

As the first one bursts across his consciousness, something in Erik’s expression cracks, and he leans forward, resting his forehead against Charles. Gently, he lifts Charles’ hips, letting his softening cock slip free, Charles frowning slightly as it does. The feeling of being so loose and open is strange now that they’ve both come, and he shivers as some of Erik’s semen slides out as well. But then Erik is stretching out over him once more, wrapping his arms around Charles’ middle and, foreheads still pressed together, turning them so they’re both resting on their sides, legs tangling. Something wet touches Charles’ skin as he shifts, pressing his chest to Erik’s, and he looks down, seeing the white streaks of his own orgasm splashed across Erik’s torso. An inordinate amount of pride washes over him at the sight of Erik painted with his cum, and he flushes with pleasure and just the tiniest bit of embarrassment.

“What?” Erik asks. Charles looks back up and sees him grinning widely, eyes soft.

“Nothing,” Charles says, shaking his head deprecatingly. “Just silly post-coital thoughts.”

Erik nuzzles at Charles’ hairline, dropping butterfly kisses against his skin. “It’s unfair you can read my silly post-coital thoughts and yours are off limits,” he teases.

Charles smiles. “It’s nothing, really,” he insists. He leans up, capturing Erik’s lips softly and pulling back to look at him fondly. “Just. Thank you, Erik. For everything you’ve done for me.”

Erik shakes his head, cupping a hand to Charles’ cheek. “I should be thanking you. Everyone should be thanking you. You saved the entire universe, Charles.”

“ _We_ saved the entire universe,” Charles corrects quietly. “If it weren’t for you, I might have been in a jail cell when the Dark Planet arrived. But you stopped. And you helped me.” He turns his head, bussing a kiss to Erik’s palm, sending a wave of gratitude into Erik’s mind. “I love you, Erik.”

“I love you, too,” Erik murmurs.

He turns Charles’ head gently, leaning in to kiss him, and Charles goes happily, Erik’s mouth warm and gentle against his own. Suddenly, Charles is overwhelmed with a giddy kind of contentment at just how perfect things are, how lucky he is to have found Erik and how grateful he is that somehow, despite being the last of his kind, despite having to travel hundreds and hundreds of lightyears in order to even get in the same solar system as Erik, fate has been kind to them both, just this once. He laughs into Erik’s mouth, carding a hand lazily through his hair.

“What now?” Erik asks, although he only sounds bemused as he ducks back in for another kiss.

Charles laughs again, nipping playfully at Erik’s lip and dropping a few more staccato kisses over his mouth. “Our love stopped a planet,” he says helplessly.

Erik pauses, breaking away so he can look at Charles full in the face, expression incredulous for a moment before a smile cracks across it as well, spreading slow and sweet as honey. Charles’ heart soars at that look, already so familiar. He pets at Erik’s hair, pleased, comforted, beaming up at Erik. After a moment, Erik starts chuckling too, which starts Charles up again, and they both start laughing louder and louder until they’re belly-laughing, clinging to each other, actual tears in both their eyes.

“Ridiculous,” Charles chokes out, wiping at his cheeks.

“ _You_ think it’s ridiculous?” Erik laughs. “It was _your_ prophecy!”

“I know!” Charles howls. “But it doesn’t make it any better.”

That sends Erik into another peal of laughter, Charles still chuckling helplessly himself, clinging to Erik, rubbing his aching stomach muscles. He’s been smiling for so long he’s starting to fear the expression might stick, and he presses a kiss to Erik’s shaking shoulder, still grinning. Erik’s hand slides into his hair, holding him close as he struggles to catch his breath.

“Mina deno achan'chinou,” Charles murmurs against his skin a moment later when Erik seems to be recovered. _I love you._

“Achan’chinou,” Erik tries, rubbing at Charles’ back. The accent is harsh, and pronunciation definitely rough, hitting the ch’s too hard, but Charles can only smile at the burst of love that accompanies it from Erik’s mind.

_Yes_ , Charles says, letting his eyes drift shut. Drowsiness tugs at him once more, and he shifts closer into Erik’s chest, curling up like a cat settling in for a nap. _Lacta. I’ll teach you more later._

 


	9. Epilogue

Three weeks later, Erik holds Charles’ fingers loosely between his own hidden underneath the table at his mother’s house away from her prying eyes. Not that she’s probably fooled in any way, but Erik at least likes to give the _illusion_ that he is a sensible, thirty-one year old adult and not a lovesick puppy dog that would roll over and let Charles scratch his tummy if Charles asked him. Whatever Raven and Irene might say, he still has some dignity.

“So tell me about this trip you’re planning,” his mother says as she refills their teacups, pushing the plate of cookies pointedly toward Charles.

She has secretly admonished Erik several times since she and Charles first met, saying that she doesn’t think Erik feeds him enough. Of course, she didn’t see the way Charles ate an entire large ham and pineapple pizza all by himself last Friday either. Erik is fairly sure his boyfriend will live, with or without his intervention.

Smiling shyly, Charles plucks a raspberry hamantash from the plate. “Well, first we thought we’d go to the Yaiqi system. That’s where the Oyemai planet is, where I spent most of my childhood. I have a few friends there, and I promised Erik I’d show him one of their concerts.”

Edie nods sagely, sipping her tea. “I’ve heard Oyemai music is some of the most beautiful in the known universe,” she says. “That sounds like it’ll be lovely.”

“I hope so,” Charles says eagerly. He takes a quick nibble out of his cookie. “Then we’re going to Ukulu to see the dancing lights, and then Prestik because Erik says they have the best curry in the galaxy.” He turns to shoot Erik an excited glance, squeezing his hand. Curry, it turns out, had been Charles' favorite discovery after mashed potatoes.

“Oh, Erik, you have to take pictures,” his mother insists, slapping the table for emphasis. “I’m so jealous.”

“We’ll bring you back a souvenir,” Erik promises her. “What about a rose gem from Ukulu?”

Edie nods. “Whatever you think I’d like, dearheart,” she says. “I’m not certain I’d know. So many places! So many things to choose from.”

“Next time we’ll take you with us,” Charles says. “When I get my pilot’s license I’ll be able to fly us anywhere you’d like. I don’t think I could ever get enough practice.”

The look of delight on Charles’ face is so strong and so beautiful Erik almost leans over and kisses him. But his mother is watching and Charles is happily chewing on his hamantash, and Erik doesn’t want to break the moment, content to bask in the joy radiating from Charles instead.

“How _are_ the lessons going?” Edie asks, turning to Erik.

Erik nods. “Really well, Mama,” he says proudly, grinning wider when he sees Charles’ blush. “ _Really_ well.” He emphasizes again. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have as a copilot.”

“Except Moira,” Charles interrupts pointedly.

“Except Moira,” Erik demures. _But Moira doesn’t give me mind-bending orgasms while we’re zipping past Venus so there’s that, too_ , he thinks loudly enough he knows Charles will catch it.

Charles, to his credit, merely turns a shade darker of pink, dropping Erik’s hand to take a sip his tea with an expression of set determination on his face. _I should hope Moira doesn’t,_ Charles projects acidically. _Or she and I will be having words._

“A student is only as good as their teacher,” Charles says, lowering the teacup. “I’m lucky to have found such a good partner.”

Edie smiles, eyes twinkling as she watches them, but though Erik can tell by the twist of her mouth that she wants to say something smart, she thankfully decides better of it and merely takes a drink herself, playing with the edge of the handle, nodding approvingly. Breathing a quiet sigh of relief, Erik finally reaches for the plate and grabs a cookie of his own, the apricot filled one he’s been eyeing since they sat down. He pops the whole thing in his mouth, humming happily when the buttery sweetness bursts on his tongue.

“Good partners are hard to come by,” Edie says at last, giving Erik a meaningful look. “But when you meet the right one, it just makes sense. When I met Erik’s father, for example, I knew he was the one.”

Erik can feel his face heat instantaneously, and he chokes around his mouthful of cookie, looking feverishly from Charles to his mother and back. It’s not that he doesn’t love Charles; he does, more than he can fathom, even. It’s not that he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life with Charles either; that much obviously true, too. But it’s embarrassing to have his own feelings flung back at him dexterously by his own mother, who he sees now to his supreme vexation, is grinning across at Charles who looks just as amused, though the blush is still dusting his cheeks.

“Mama,” Erik coughs. “Charles doesn’t mean—”

Charles reaches over, placing one hand on Erik’s thigh and the other on Erik’s back, rubbing a circle gently in between Erik’s shoulder blades across his spine, using just enough pressure for it to be on the wrong side of casual. Erik swallows down the rest of his cookie with a near painful gulp. “Yes,” Charles reflects lightly. “It just clicks, doesn’t it?”

Erik pauses, frowning, not knowing what to do or how to respond. But when he looks at his mother out of the corner of his eye, he sees she’s smiling, too.

 _Relax, amoun_ , _she’s only teasing._ Charles sends, smile growing a few teeth. _I, on the other hand, am completely serious._

And Erik knows the only proper response to that is to throw decorum to the wind and lean down to taste the smile off those cherry red, cookie sweet lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap, folks! Thank you to everyone who has been reading, commenting, and leaving kudos. Thanks also to avictoriangirl for the lovely, lovely cover that I am still fangirling about. 
> 
> And of course, thank you especially to pangeasplits who agreed to collab with me on this when all I had was, "I need to do this AU and it needs to have Wade Wilson in it." :')

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover art for "Erik Lehnsherr's Guide to Saving the Universe"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6009607) by [avictoriangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avictoriangirl/pseuds/avictoriangirl)




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